


THE   LIFE   OF 
BENJAMIN    DISRAELI 

EARL   OF   BEACONSFIELD 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

HEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Lnx 

TORONTO 


THE  LIFE  OF 

BENJAMIN    DISRAELI 

EARL   OF    BEACONSFIELD 

BY 

WILLIAM    FLAVELLE    MONYPENNY 


VOLUME    I 

1804—1837 

WITH  PORTRAITS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Read  no  history,  nothing  but 
biography,  for  that  is  life  without 
theory.  —  CONTARINI  FLEMING. 


fforfe 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1910, 
BY  THE  TIMES  PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  LIMITED. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  November,  igio.     Reprinted 
June,  1911  ;  January,  1913;  September,  1914 ;  December,  1916. 


J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <fc  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

THE  main  source  of  the  biography  of  which  this  is 
the  first  volume  is  the  great  mass  of  papers  bequeathed 
by  Lord  Beaconsfield  to  the  late  Lord  Rowton  and  now 
in  the  keeping  of  the  trustees  of  the  Beaconsfield  estate ; 
and  my  first  duty  is  a  grateful  recognition  of  the  unfail- 
ing kindness  and  confidence  which  Lord  Rothschild  and 
the  other  trustees  have  bestowed  upon  me  since  I  began 
my  long  and  arduous  enterprise.  For  this  volume,  the 
most  difficult  and  laborious  portion  of  the  whole  work, 
it  has  not  been  possible  to  derive  much  assistance  from 
extraneous  sources  other  than  those  which  are  accessible 
to  all:  my  principal  obligations  are  to  Lady  Layard  for 
Disraeli's  correspondence  with  the  Austens ;  to  Sir  Her- 
bert Thompson  for  the  letters  to  William  Pyne;  and  to 
Captain  C.  L.  Lindsay  for  some  of  the  original  material 
which  formed  the  basis  of  the  published  volume  Lord 
Beaconsfield 's  Letters. 

To  the  King  I  owe  my  dutiful  acknowledgment  of 
the  permission  which  his  Majesty  has  been  graciously 
pleased  to  accord  me  to  print  the  letter  to  Queen  Victoria 
in  Appendix  A  ;  and  I  have  to  thank  Lord  Grey,  Lord 
Tennyson,  and  Constance  Lady  Haldon  for  access  to,  or 
permission  to  publish,  other  single  documents.  I  have 
also  to  thank  Mr.  Coningsby  Disraeli  for  much  assist- 
ance with  the  illustrations,  in  particular  for  allowing  the 


vi  PREFACE 

reproduction  of  pictures  at  Hughenden;  and  Mr.  Mo- 
berly  Bell  and  Mr.  G.  W.  Prothero  for  their  kindness 
in  reading  the  proof  sheets  and  for  many  valuable  criti- 
cisms and  suggestions. 

While  still  in  his  youth  Disraeli  adopted  the  practice, 
which  he  followed  scrupulously  and  consistently  to  the 
end  of  his  life,  of  spelling  words  such  as  '  honor,'  '  favor,' 
and  so  forth,  according  to  their  Latin  origin;  and  in 
passages  where  his  own  language  is  reproduced  this  spell- 
ing has  been  allowed  to  stand,  though  elsewhere  the 
ordinary  English  usage  has  been  followed. 

W.  F.  M. 

OCTOBER,  1910. 


CONTENTS   OF  VOL.  I. 

CHAPTEB  PAOB 

PREFACE ix 

I.     ANCESTRY 1 

II.     ISAAC   D'ISRAELI 9 

in.     EARLY   YEARS.     1804-1821 18 

IV.     LAW  AND  TRAVEL.     1821-1824 32 

V.  FINANCE   AND   JOURNALISM.     1826     ....       54 

VI.     VIVIAN  GREY.     1826 79 

VII.     A  TOUR   IN   ITALY.     1826 94 

VIII.  ILLNESS   AND   DESPONDENCY.     1827-1830  .         .         .112 

IX.     TOUR   IN  THE   EAST.     1830-1831 136 

X.  CONTARINI   FLEMING  AND   ALROY.     1832-1833         .     181 

XI.  ENTRY   INTO   POLITICS.     1832-1833       .         .         .         .201 

XII.     LIFE   IN   LONDON.     1833-1834 230 

XIII.  JOINS  THE  CONSERVATIVES.     1834-1835    .        .         .260 

XIV.  POLITICAL  WRITINGS.     1835-1836         .        .        .        .296 
XV.  HENRIETTA  TEMPLE  AND  VENETIA.     1834-1837    .    337 

XVI.     PARLIAMENT  AT  LAST.     1837 367 

APPENDIX  : 

A.  TITA        .        .        »____*- .-— 7 383 

B.  LORD  LYNDHURST'S  RECOLLECTIONS.   1826-1832  386 

C.  D'ORSAY'S  PORTRAIT  OF  LYNDHURST       .        .  390 

INDEX  ,    393 


vii 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS   TO   VOL.   I. 

BENJAMIN  D'ISRAELI   THE  ELDER        .        .        .       Frontispiece 
From  a  portrait  at  Hughenden. 

FACING  PAOB 

SARAH   D'ISRAELI  THE   ELDER 8 

From  a  portrait  at  Hughenden. 

BENJAMIN  DISRAELI   AS   A   CHILD 18 

From  a  miniature  by  Cosway. 

ISAAC  D'ISRAELI 48 

From  a  drawing  by  Denning,  1834. 

MARIA  D'ISRAELI 74 

From  a  painting  by  Downman,  1805. 

BRADENHAM   MANOR 120 

From  a  watercolour  by  Mrs.  Partridge. 

BENJAMIN  DISRAELI 148 

From  a  drawing  by  Maclise,  1828. 

SARAH  DISRAELI  THE  YOUNGER 178 

From  a  drawing  by  Maclise,  1828. 

THE   HIGH  STREET,   HIGH  WYCOMBE 214 

From  an  engraving  of  a  picture  by  E.  J.  Niemann. 

BENJAMIN  DISRAELI 262 

From  a  portrait  by  Count  D'Orsay,  1834. 

LORD  LYNDHURST 330 

From  a  portrait  by  Count  D'Orsay. 

'THE  AUTHOR  OF  VIVIAN  GREY' 364 

From  a  drawing  by  Maclise. 


CHAPTER   I 

ANCESTRY 

What  a  famous  man  believes  as  to  his  remote 
ancestral  origins  is  often  of  more  import  than  the 
dry,  literal  truth,  and  it  will  be  best,  therefore,  to 
begin  with  the  story  of  the  Disraelis  as  it  shaped 
itself  in  the  mind  of  the  subject  of  these  memoirs. 

There  have  been  two  great  colonies  of  the  Jewish  race  in 
Europe  —  in  Spain  and  in  Sarmatia.  The  origin  of  the  Jews 
in  Spain  is  lost  in  the  night  of  time.  That  it  was  of  great 
antiquity  we  have  proof.  The  tradition,  never  derided, 
that  the  Iberian  Jews  were  a  Phoenician  colony  has  been 
favoured  by  the  researches  of  modern  antiquaries,  who 
have  traced  the  Hebrew  language  in  the  ancient  names  of 
the  localities.  .  .  .  We  know  that  in  the  time  of  Cicero  the 
Jews  had  been  settled  immemorially  in  Spain.  When  the 
Romans,  converted  to  Christianity  and  acted  on  by  the 
priesthood,  began  to  trouble  the  Spanish  Jews,  it  appears 
by  a  decree  of  Constantine  that  they  were  owners  and  culti- 
vators of  the  soil,  a  circumstance  which  alone  proves  the 
antiquity  and  the  nobility  of  their  settlement,  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  land  is  never  conceded  to  a  degraded  race.  The 

VOL.    I B 


2  ANCESTRY  [CHAP,  i 

conquest  of  Spain  by  the  Goths  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries 
threatened  the  Spanish  Jews,  however,  with  more  serious 
adversaries  than  the  Romans.  The  Gothic  tribes,  very 
recently  converted  to  their  Syrian  faith,  were  full  of  barbaric 
zeal  against  those  whom  they  looked  upon  as  the  enemies 
of  Jesus.  But  the  Spanish  Jews  sought  assistance  from 
their  kinsmen  the  Saracens  on  the  opposite  coast;  Spain 
was  invaded  and  subdued  by  the  Moors,  and  for  several 
centuries  the  Jew  and  the  Saracen  lived  under  the  same 
benignant  laws  and  shared  the  same  brilliant  prosperity. 
In  the  history  of  Spain  during  the  Saracenic  supremacy  any 
distinction  of  religion  or  race  is  no  longer  traced.  And  so  it 
came  to  pass  that  when  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
after  the  fell  triumph  of  the  Dominicans  over  the  Albigenses, 
the  Holy  Inquisition  was  introduced  into  Spain,  it  was  re- 
ported to  Torquemada  that  two-thirds  of  the  nobility  of 
Arragon  —  that  is  to  say,  of  the  proprietors  of  the  laud  — 
were  Jews. 

All  that  these  men  knew  of  Christianity  was  that  it  was  a 
religion  of  fire  and  sword,  and  that  one  of  its  first  duties  was 
to  revenge  some  mysterious  and  inexplicable  crime  which 
had  been  committed  ages  ago  by  some  unheard-of  ancestors 
of  theirs  in  an  unknown  land.  The  inquisitors  addressed 
themselves  to  the  Spanish  Jews  in  the  same  abrupt  and 
ferocious  manner  in  which  the  monks  saluted  the  Mexicans 
and  the  Peruvians.  All  those  of  the  Spanish  Jews  who  did 
not  conform  after  the  fall  of  the  Mahomedan  kingdoms 
were  expatriated  by  the  victorious  Goths,  and  these  refugees 
were  the  main  source  of  the  Italian  Jews,  and  of  the  most 
respectable  portion  of  the  Jews  of  Holland.  These  exiles 
found  refuge  in  two  republics  —  Venice  and  the  United 
Provinces.1 

After  this  historic  preamble  we  enter  the  more  dubious 
region  of  family  tradition  and  genealogical  legend. 

My  grandfather,  who  became  an  English  denizen  in  1748, 
was  an  Italian  descendant  of  one  of  those  Hebrew  families 
whom  the  Inquisition  forced  to  emigrate  from  the  Spanish 
Peninsula  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  who  found 
a  refuge  in  the  more  tolerant  territories  of  the  Venetian 
Republic.  His  ancestors  had  dropped  their  Gothic  surname 
on  their  settlement  on  the  terra  firma,  and,  grateful  to  the 
God  of  Jacob  who  had  sustained  them  through  unprece- 
dented trials  and  guarded  them  through  unheard-of  perils, 

1  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  ch.  24. 


JEWS  IN  ENGLAND  3 

they  assumed  the  name  of  Disraeli,  a  name  never  borne 
before  or  since  by  any  other  family,  in  order  that  their  race 
might  be  for  ever  recognised.  Undisturbed  and  unmolested 
they  flourished  as  merchants  for  more  than  two  centuries 
under  the  protection  of  the  lion  of  St.  Mark,  which  was  but 
just,  as  the  patron  Saint  of  the  Republic  was  himself  a  child 
of  Israel.  But  towards  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  altered  circumstances  of  England,  favorable,  as  it  was 
then  supposed,  to  commerce  and  religious  liberty,  attracted 
the  attention  of  my  great-grandfather  to  this  island,  and 
he  resolved  that  the  youngest  of  his  two  sons,  Benjamin, 
the  son  of  his  right  hand,  should  settle  in  a  country  where 
the  dynasty  seemed  at  length  established  through  the  recent 
failure  of  Prince  Charles  Edward,  and  where  public  opinion 
appeared  definitively  adverse  to  persecution  of  creed  and 
conscience. 

The  Jewish  families  who  were  then  settled  in  England 
were  few,  though,  from  their  wealth  and  other  circumstances, 
they  were  far  from  unimportant.  They  were  all  of  them 
Sephardim  —  that  is  to  say,  Children  of  Israel,  who  had 
never  quitted  the  shores  of  the  Midland  Ocean  until 
Torquemada  had  driven  them  from  their  pleasant  residences 
and  rich  estates  in  Arragon,  and  Andalusia,  and  Portugal, 
to  seek  greater  blessings  even  than  a  clear  atmosphere  and 
a  glowing  sun,  amid  the  marshes  of  Holland  and  the  fogs  of 
Britain.  Most  of  these  families,  who  held  themselves  aloof 
from  the  Hebrews  of  Northern  Europe,  then  only  occasion- 
ally stealing  into  England,  as  from  an  inferior  caste,  and 
whose  synagogue  was  reserved  only  for  the  Sephardim,  are 
now  extinct ;  while  the  branch  of  the  great  family,  which, 
notwithstanding  their  own  sufferings  from  prejudice,  they 
had  the  hardihood  to  look  down  upon,  have  achieved  an 
amount  of  wealth  and  consideration  which  the  Sephardim, 
even  with  the  patronage  of  Mr.  Pelham,  never  could  have 
contemplated.  Nevertheless,  at  the  time  when  my  grand- 
father settled  in  England,  and  when  Mr.  Pelham,  who  was 
very  favourable  to  the  Jews,  was  Prime  Minister,  there  might 
be  found,  among  other  Jewish  families  settled  in  this  country, 
the  Villa  Reals,  who  brought  wealth  to  these  shores  almost 
as  great  as  their  name,  though  that  is  the  second  in  Portugal, 
and  who  have  twice  allied  themselves  with  the  English 
aristocracy,  the  Medinas,  the  Laras  —  who  were  our  kinsmen 
—  and  the  Mendez  da  Costas,  who,  I  believe,  still  exist. 

Whether  it  were  that  my  grandfather,  on  his  arrival,  was 
not  encouraged  by  those  to  whom  he  had  a  right  to  look  up 


4  ANCESTRY  [CHAP,  i 

—  which  is  often  our  hard  case  in  the  outset  of  life  —  or  whether 
he  was  alarmed  at  the  unexpected  consequences  of  Mr.  Pel- 
ham's  favorable  disposition  to  his  countrymen  in  the  dis- 
graceful repeal  of  the  Jew  Bill  which  occurred  a  very  few 
years  after  his  arrival  in  this  country,  I  know  not ;  but  cer- 
tainly he  appears  never  to  have  cordially  or  intimately 
mixed  with  his  community.  This  tendency  to  alienation 
was,  no  doubt,  subsequently  encouraged  by  his  marriage, 
which  took  place  in  1765.  My  grandmother,  the  beautiful 
daughter  of  a  family  who  had  suffered  from  persecution, 
had  imbibed  that  dislike  for  her  race  which  the  vain  are 
too  apt  to  adopt  when  they  find  that  they  are  born  to  public 
contempt.  The  indignant  feeling  that  should  be  reserved 
for  the  persecutor,  in  the  mortification  of  their  disturbed 
sensibility,  is  too  often  visited  on  the  victim;  and  the  cause 
of  annoyance  is  recognised  not  in  the  ignorant  malevolence 
of  the  powerful,  but  in  the  conscientious  conviction  of  the 
innocent  sufferer.  Seventeen  years,  however,  elapsed  before 
my  grandfather  entered  into  this  union,  and  during  that 
interval  he  had  not  been  idle.  He  was  only  eighteen  when  he 
commenced  his  career  and  when  a  great  responsibility  devolved 
upon  him.  He  was  not  unequal  to  it.  He  was  a  man  of 
ardent  character ;  sanguine,  courageous,  speculative,  and 
fortunate;  with  a  temper  which  no  disappointment  could 
disturb,  and  a  brain,  amid  reverses,  full  of  resource.  He 
made  his  fortune  in  the  midway  of  life,  and  settled  near 
Enfield,  where  he  formed  an  Italian  garden,  entertained 
his  friends,  played  whist  with  Sir  Horace  Mann,  who  was 
his  great  acquaintance,  and  who  had  known  his  brother  at 
Venice  as  a  banker,  ate  macaroni  which  was  dressed  by  the 
Venetian  Consul,  sang  canzonettas,  and,  notwithstanding  a 
wife  who  never  pardoned  him  for  his  name,  and  a  son  who 
disappointed  all  his  plans,  and  who  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life 
was  an  enigma  to  him,  lived  till  he  was  nearly  ninety,  and 
then  died  in  1817  l  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  prolonged 
existence. 

My  grandfather  retired  from  active  business  on  the  eve  of 
that  great  financial  epoch,  to  grapple  with  which  his  talents 
were  well  adapted;  and  when  the  wars  and  loans  of  the 
Revolution  were  about  to  create  those  families  of  millionaires, 
in  which  he  might  probably  have  enrolled  his  own.  That, 
however,  was  not  our  destiny.2 

1  He  really  died  in  Nov.,  1816,  at  the  age  of  86. 

2  Memoir  of  Isaac  D'Israeli  prefaced  to  the  collected  edition  of  his 
works  published  in  1849. 


ITALIAN   HOME   OF   THE   D'ISRAELIS  5 

Such  is  Benjamin  Disraeli's  story  of  the  vicissitudes 
of  his  family,  such  the  background  of  historic  truth 
and  genealogical  legend  in  which  he  sought  his  con- 
nexion with  the  larger  vicissitudes  of  his  race.  In  these 
ancestral  matters  we  are  most  of  us  prone  to  mistake 
possibilities  for  probabilities,  and  to  rear  grandiose 
theories  on  a  very  slender  foundation  of  fact.  Disraeli 
was  no  exception  to  the  rule :  indeed,  all  his  days  he  was 
haunted,  more  than  most  men,  by  a  longing  to  escape 
from  the  sordid  details  of  commonplace  life  into  spacious 
historical  atmospheres.  In  the  present  instance  he  had 
probably  very  little  precise  knowledge  to  cool  his  ardent 
imagination.  His  'father,  in  spite  of  his  multifarious 
curiosity,  appears  never  to  have  troubled  himself  about 
his  own  family  antecedents,  and  Benjamin  D'Israeli  the 
elder  died  before  his  grandson  was  of  an  age  to  have 
his  curiosity  awakened.  It  need  not  then  surprise  us 
to  find  that  criticism  has  been  busy  with  the  narrative 
which  has  just  been  given.  The  tradition  of  an  ancestor 
who  took  part  in  the  great  Jewish  exodus  from  Spain 
in  the  time  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  may  or  may  not 
be  well  founded,  but  it  is  not  supported  by  any  inde- 
pendent evidence.  The  story  of  the  long  sojourn  in 
Venice  is  even  more  open  to  suspicion ;  no  trace  of  the 
family  having  been  discovered  in  Venetian  archives  till 
a  period  subsequent  to  the  migration  to  England.  What 
we  know  for  certain  is  that  the  grandfather  Benjamin 
D'Israeli,  who  'became  an  English  denizen  in  1748,' 
had  his  Italian  home  not  in  Venice  but  at  Cento  in 
Ferrara  1 :  we  know  also  that  a  Jewish  colony,  no  doubt 
mainly  of  Levantine  origin,  existed  in  Ferrara  before 
the  Spanish  exodus,  but  that  it  was  largely  reinforced 

1  In  his  formal  deed  of  denization  in  England,  dated  1801,  he 
described  himself  as  'of  Cento  in  Italy.'  Cento  is  best  known 
as  the  birthplace  of  the  painter  Guercino,  and  it  is  worthy  of  note 
that  among  the  possessions  of  the  D'Israeli  family  were  a  couple  of 
pictures  by  that  master  which  Lord  Beaconsfield  used  to  say 
had  been  a  wedding  present  to  his  grandfather  from  an  Italian 
friend. 


6  ANCESTRY  [CHAP,  i 

by  the  exiles  who  fled  from  Torquemada.  The  name,1 
for  which  we  have  to  be  content  with  a  less  picturesque 
derivation  than  was  claimed  for  it  by  the  man  who  has 
made  it  so  famous,  is  equally  consistent  either  with  a 
Spanish  or  a  Levantine  origin.  It  was  only  after  his 
arrival  in  England  that  Benjamin  D'Israeli,  the  grand- 
father, began  to  write  it  with  the  D'.  His  father  was 
one  Isaac  Israeli,  of  whom  we  know  nothing  besides, 
and  Israeli,  it  would  appear,  is  an  Arabic  word  meaning 
Israelite,  which  from  its  constant  application  to  indi- 
vidual Jews  by  the  non-Jewish  population  in  Moorish 
Spain  and  in  the  Levant  frequently  developed  into 
a  permanent  surname.  Thus  all  that  our  positive 
knowledge  amounts  to  is  that  the  D'Israelis  were  of 
the  seed  of  Abraham,  and  that  they  came  proximately 
from  Italy,  a  land  which  has  produced  so  many  more 
than  its  due  allotment  of  the  world's  great  statesmen 
and  rulers. 

The  circumstances  of  the  young  immigrant  who  came 
to  London  to  seek  his  fortune  were  in  all  likelihood 
humble  enough,  and  we  need  not  suppose  that  when 
he  set  out  for  England  the  security  of  the  Hanoverian 
dynasty  figured  very  largely  in  his  calculations.  He 
was  content  to  begin  as  a  clerk  in  an  Anglo-Italian 
house,  and  though  he  presently  established  himself  in 
a  business  of  his  own  as  an  Italian  merchant,  it  was  long 
before  real  prosperity  came  to  him.  To  vary  the  mo- 
notony of  his  business  as  a  merchant  he  tried  experiments 
in  the  stock  market ;  but  these  at  first  were  unfortunate, 
and  though  eventually  he  won  a  good  position  as  a 
stockbroker,  and  even  became  a  member  of  the  Stock 
Exchange  Committee,  he  was  for  a  time  involved  in 
serious  difficulties.  In  1765,  however,  he  married,  as 

1  The  whole  question  of  Disraeli  origins  has  been  examined  with 
much  learning  and  industry  by  Mr.  Lucien  Wolf  in  two  articles 
contributed  to  The  Times  on  the  occasion  of  the  Disraeli  centenary 
in  1904,  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  several  of  the  facts  here 
given. 


BENJAMIN   D'ISRAELI  THE   ELDER  7 

his  second  1  wife,  one  Sarah  Siprut  de  Gabay,  who, 
through  her  paternal  grandmother,  inherited  the  blood 
of  the  Villa  Reals,  a  fact  which  her  grandson  in  later 
days  loved  to  recall.  What  is  more  to  the  point,  she 
seems  to  have  brought  her  husband  both  capital  and 
credit,  and  from  this  time  onward  he  made  steady  pro- 
gress and  ultimately  attained  to  substantial  prosperity. 
It  is  only,  however,  in  the  imagination  of  his  grandson 
that  he  was  ever  even  a  possible  rival  of  the  Rothschilds. 
At  his  death  he  left  estate  real  and  personal  which  was 
sworn  under  £ 35,000.  In  his  will  he  sums  up  his 
vicissitudes  of  residence  by  describing  himself  as 
'formerly  of  Enfield  in  the  County  of  Middlesex,  and 
then  of  Woodford  in  the  County  of  Essex  and  of  Old 
Broad  Street,  London,  but  late  of  Church  Street,  Stoke 
Newington,'  where  he  died.  His  tomb,  restored  by  his 
grandson  when  in  the  plenitude  of  his  fame  and  great- 
ness, may  still  be  seen  in  the  Portuguese  Jews'  Cemetery 
at  Mile  End,  in  the  East  of  London. 

Benjamin  D'Israeli  the  elder  remained  to  the  end  of 
his  life  a  member  of  the  Sephardi  congregation  of  Bevis 
Marks,  and  though,  as  we  are  told,2  he  was  somewhat 
lax  in  his  observances  and  took  no  great  interest  in 
the  affairs  of  the  Synagogue,  he  contributed  liberally 
to  its  support  and  increased  his  donations  as  the  growth 
of  his  fortune  gave  him  warrant.  On  one  occasion  he 
even  served  in  the  minor  office  of  Inspector  of  the  Charity 
School,  though  apparently  his  zeal  in  the  performance 
of  the  duties  was  not  remarkable.  From  the  few 
glimpses  we  get  of  him,  he  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of 
winning  and  kindly  disposition.  His  son  Isaac,  writing 


1  He    had    previously  married  in    1756    Rebecca    Mendez    Furtado, 
and  the  offspring  of  this  union   was   a   daughter   Rachel,  who  in   her 
turn   became  the  mother  of  four  daughters  by  a  second  marriage  with 
one  Angelo  Todosto  (or  Tedesco).     Rachel  Todosto  eventually  migrated 
with   her  children  to  Italy,  where  their  descendants  are  living  at  the 
present  day. 

2  Picciotto's  Sketches  of  Anglo-Jewish  History,  p.  296. 


8  ANCESTRY  [CHAP,  i 

after  his  death,  dwells  on  his  'sweetness  of  temper  and 
generosity  of  feeling';  and  more  than  half  a  century 
later  his  grandson  still  affectionately  remembered  the 
'  kind  good-natured  man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  giving 
me  presents  when  his  wife  was  away.'  Far  different 
were  Lord  Beaconsfield's  recollections  of  his  grand- 
mother: 'a  demon,'  as  he  described  her  to  Lord  Rowton 
in  his  grandiose  way,  *  only  equalled  by  Sarah  Duchess 
of  Marlborough,  Frances  Ann  [Marchioness  of  Lon- 
donderry], and  perhaps  Catherine  of  Russia.' 

She  lived  till  1825,  when  she  died,  aged  82,  and  was  buried 
in  Willesden  Church,  where  her  monument  is.  She  was 
informally  a  Protestant  at  the  time  of  her  death.  She  came 
to  stay  with  my  father  and  mother  at  Hyde  House  near 
Chesham  in  the  year  1825,  and  was  kind  and  suave  to  all : 
upon  seeing  which  I  recollect  that  my  mother  remarked, 
'  Depend  upon  it  she  is  going  to  die. '  I  remember  with 
horror  the  journeys  on  Sundays  from  Bloomsbury  Square 
to  Kensington  when  I  was  a  boy.  No  public  conveyances, 
no  kindness,  no  tea,  no  tips  —  nothing. 


CHAPTER   II 


ISAAC  D'IsRAELi 

To  Benjamin  and  Sarah  DTsraeli  a  son  Isaac,  their 
only  child,  was  born  in  1766. 

Nature  [proceeds  the  Memoir  from  which  we  have  already 
drawn]  had  disqualified  him,  from  his  cradle,  for  the  busy 
pursuits  of  men.  A  pale,  pensive  child,  with  large  dark 
brown  eyes,  and  flowing  hair,  had  grown  up  beneath  this  roof 
of  worldly  energy  and  enjoyment,  indicating  even  in  his 
infancy,  by  the  whole  carriage  of  his  life,  that  he  was  of  a 
different  order  from  those  among  whom  he  lived.  Timid, 
susceptible,  lost  in  reverie,  fond  of  solitude,  or  seeking  no 
better  company  than  a  book,  the  years  had  stolen  on,  till 
he  arrived  at  that  mournful  period  of  boyhood  when  eccen- 
tricities excite  attention  and  command  no  sympathy.  Then 
commenced  the  age  of  domestic  criticism.  His  mother, 
not  incapable  of  deep  affections,  but  so  mortified  by  her  social 
position  that  she  lived  until  eighty  without  indulging  in  a 
tender  expression,  foresaw  for  her  child  only  a  future  of  degra- 
dation. Having  a  strong,  clear  mind,  without  any  imagina- 
tion, she  believed  that  she  beheld  an  inevitable  doom.  The 
tart  remark  and  the  contemptuous  comment  on  her  part, 
elicited,  on  the  other,  all  the  irritability  of  the  poetic  idiosyn- 
crasy. After  frantic  ebullitions,  for  which,  when  the  cir- 
cumstances were  analysed  by  an  ordinary  mind,  there  seemed 
no  sufficient  cause,  my  grandfather  always  interfered  to 
soothe  with  good-tempered  commonplaces,  and  promote 
peace.  He  was  a  man  who  thought  that  the  only  way  to 
make  people  happy  was  to  make  them  a  present.  He  took 
it  for  granted  that  a  boy  in  a  passion  wanted  a  toy  or  a  guinea. 
At  a  later  date  when  my  father  ran  away  from  home,  and  after 


10  ISAAC   D'ISRAELI  [CHAP,  n 

some  wanderings  was  brought  back,  found  lying  on  a  tomb- 
stone in  Hackney  Churchyard,  he  embraced  him,  and  gave  him 
a  pony. 

Soon  however  these  remedies  ceased  to  avail. 

The  crisis  arrived,  when,  after  months  of  abstraction  and 
irritability,  my  father  produced  a  poem.  For  the  first  time 
my  grandfather  was  seriously  alarmed.  The  loss  of  one  of 
his  argosies,  uninsured,  could  not  have  filled  him  with  more 
blank  dismay.  His  idea  of  a  poet  was  formed  from  one 
of  the  prints  of  Hogarth  hanging  in  his  room,  where  an 
unfortunate  wight  in  a  garret  was  inditing  an  ode  to  riches, 
while  dunued  for  his  milk-score. 

Decisive  measures  were  at  once  adopted  and  the  young 
poet  was  sent  to  Amsterdam,  'consigned  like  a  bale  of 
goods  to  my  grandfather's  correspondent,who  had  instruc- 
tions to  place  him  at  some  collegium  of  repute  in  that 
city.'  Here  he  lived  for  the  next  three  or  four  years 
in  the  charge  of  a  tutor  who  gave  the  intelligent  boy 
the  run  of  an  excellent  library,  but  made  no  attempt 
to  impart  the  mental  discipline  that  mip-H  have  been  so 
salutary.  '  Before  his  pupil  was  fifteen,  he  had  read  the 
works  of  Voltaire  and  had  dipped  into  Bayle,'  authors, 
it  may  be  remarked,  whose  influence  can  be  seen  in  all 
his  subsequent  work  and  may  be  detected  even  in  the 
mind  of  his  more  famous  son.  '  When  he  was  eighteen 
he  returned  to  England  a  disciple  of  Rousseau,'  and  no 
better  equipped  than  when  he  left  for  taking  the  place 
which  the  commercial  ambition  of  his  father  or  the  social 
aspirations  of  his  mother  would  have  assigned  to  him. 
The  father  proposed  to  place  his  son  in  a  mercantile 
establishment  at  Bordeaux.  Isaac  replied  that  '  he  had 
written  a  poem  of  considerable  length,  which  he  wished  to 
publish,  against  commerce  which  was  the  corruption  of 
man.'  Finally  a  compromise  was  discovered. 

He  was  sent  abroad,  to  travel  in  France,  which  the  peace 
then  permitted,  visit  some  friends,  see  Paris,  and  then  proceed 
to  Bordeaux  if  he  felt  inclined.  My  father  travelled  in  France, 
and  then  proceeded  to  Paris  where  he  remained  till  the  eve 
of  great  events  in  that  capital.  This  was  a  visit  recollected 
with  satisfaction.  He  lived  with  learned  men  and  moved 


HIS   MARRIAGE  11 

in  vast  libraries,  and  returned  in  the  earlier  part  of  1788, 
with  some  little  knowledge  of  life,  and  with  a  considerable 
quantity  of  books. 

As  early  as  1786  D'Israeli  had  appeared  in  print  in 
the  Gentleman's  Magazine  and  the  year  after  his  return 
from  Paris  he  published  in  the  same  serial  an  anonymous 
satire  in  verse  which  is  now  forgotten  but  was  fortunate 
enough  to  attract  some  attention  at  the  time  and  to  win 
for  its  author,  when  his  identity  was  revealed,  the  acquain- 
tance .of  some  of  the  minor  literary  celebrities  of  the  day. 
Poetry,  however,  was  not  his  field,  and  he  presently  struck 
a  more  productive  vein.  In  his  twenty-fifth  year  he 
published,  again  anonymously,  a  volume  of  anecdotes, 
sketches,  and  observations  which  under  the  happy  title 
of  "  Curiosities  of  Literature "  soon  became  popular. 
A  second  volume  followed  a  couple  of  years  later, 
and  the  success  of  this  work  gave  a  bias  to  its  author's 
mental  development  and  eventually  determined  his 
whole  literary  career.  Many  years  indeed  of  undecided 
purpose,  of  '  hesitating  and  imperfect  effort '  and  of 
vague  aspirations  after  fame  in  the  creative  fields  of 
literature  were  still  to  come;  for,  with  ample  means 
to  supply  his  immediate  wants  provided  under  the 
will  of  his  maternal  grandmother  and  ample  prospects 
secured  in  the  succession  to  his  father's  fortune  Isaac 
D'Israeli  missed  the  salutary  compulsion  which  the 
necessity  of  earning  his  daily  bread  would  have  imposed. 
But  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  he  renounced  his  dreams  and, 
according  to  his  son,  '  resolved  to  devote  himself  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.' 

This  crisis  in  his  mental  development  coincided  with 
an  important  change  in  the  external  ordering  of  his  life. 
In  1802  he  married  Maria  Basevi,the  youngest  daughter 
of  an  Italian  Jew  who  had  settled  in  England  later  than 
Benjamin  D'Israeli.  In  the  case  of  most  great  men 
the  mother's  influence  is  perhaps  more  potent  than  the 
father's  in  the  shaping  of  character  and  career ;  but  the 
subject  of  this  biography  seems  to  have  been  an  exception. 


12  ISAAC   D'ISRAELI  [CHAP,  n 

The  Basevi  family  were  then  and  later  not  devoid  of 
intellectual  distinction, but  no  portion  of  it  seems  to  have 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  Maria  D'Israeli.  She  lived  till  1847 
—  long  enough  to  see  her  son  one  of  the  foremost  men 
in  Parliament ;  yet  in  the  family  correspondence  we 
seldom  hear  of  her,  or  if  she  is  mentioned  it  is  usually 
in  connexion  with  some  passing  illness  or  some  domestic 
detail.  In  the  Memoir  of  Isaac  D'Israeli,  which  his  son 
contributed  to  a  collected  edition  of  his  works  published 
after  his  death,  and  which  forms  the  basis  of  this  and  the 
preceding  chapter,  she  finds  no  place  at  all.  Her  daughter, 
writing  on  its  appearance  to  congratulate  her  brother 
on  '  the  success  of  his  labour  of  love '  and  writing  with 
a  sister's  admiring  partiality,  was  nevertheless  quick 
to  notice  the  omission. 

Your  essay  must  ever  rank  among  the  most  delightful 
biographic  sketches  in  our  language,  if  not  the  most  so,  and 
I  can  at  this  moment  remember  nothing  like  it.  Never  was 
there  a  character  at  once  so  skilfully,  tenderly,  and  truthfully 
delineated.  Every  line  told  in  my  heart  as  I  eagerly  ran  over 
them.  As  for  the  whole,  no  one  but  ourselves  can  know  how 
true  it  is,  but  everybody  will  feel  how  charming.  Only  your 
magic  pen  could  have  so  grouped  materials  which  seemed  so 
scant  into  a  picture  full  of  interest  for  all  the  world.  If  it  be 
short,  it  is  full  of  matter.  Every  thing  is  in  it — everything 
at  least  but  one.  I  do  wish  that  one  felicitous  stroke,  one 
tender  word  had  brought  our  dear  Mother  into  the  picture. 
You  will  think  me  ungrateful  not  'to  be  quite  satisfied.  It  is 
easy  for  one  who  can  do  nothing  else  to  make  remarks. 

Maria  D'Israeli  in  fact  appears  to  have  been  an  excel- 
lent wife  and  mother,  who  kept  the  affection  of  her 
husband  and  won  the  affection  of  her  children,  but  never 
counted  for  much  in  the  intellectual  life  of  either. 

For  Isaac  D'Israeli  the  ten  years  that  followed  his  mar- 
riage were  years  mainly  of  accumulation.  '  His  pen  was 
never  idle,  but  it  was  to  note  and  to  register,  not  to  com- 
pose. His  researches  were  prosecuted  every  morning 
among  the  MSS.  of  the  British  Museum,  while  his  own 
ample  collections  permitted  him  to  pursue  his  investiga- 


HIS  WRITINGS  13 

tion  in  his  own  library  into  the  night.'  Boxes  of  his 
papers  still  survive  which  bear  testimony  to  this  untiring 
if  somewhat  desultory  industry — a  chaos  of  fragmentary 
notes  in  small  and  crowded  penmanship,  no  scrap  of 
paper  that  came  to  hand  and  had  an  unused  corner 
being  either  too  high  or  too  low  to  serve  his  need.  Even- 
tually the  desire  of  composition  again  came  over  him. 
'From  1812  to  1822  the  press  abounded  with  his  works. 
His  Calamities  of  Authors,  his  Memoirs  of  Literary  Con- 
troversy, in  the  manner  of  Bayle  ;  his  Essay  on  the  Literary 
Character,  the  most  perfect  of  his  compositions,  were 
all  chapters  in  that  History  of  English  Literature  which 
he  then  commenced  to  meditate,  and  which  it  was  fated 
should  never  be  completed.'  There  is  evidence  that 
even  before  his  marriage  the  idea  of  this  monumental 
work  had  occurred  to  him  :  it  became  no  doubt  the 
leading  inspiration  of  his  studies  and  gave  to  them 
whatever  unity  of  purpose  they  possessed;  and  it  hovered 
before  his  eyes  for  forty  years  till  blindness  overtook 
him.  But  his  activity  was  by  no  means  confined  within 
the  bounds  of  this  great  design.  His  early  work,  the 
Curiosities  of  Literature,  was  cosmopolitan  rather  than 
exclusively  English  in  its  range,  and  as  the  public  con- 
tinued to  buy  and  read  it,  the  author  was  eventually 
induced  to  begin  a  process  of  revision  and  enrichment 
under  which  it  grew  in  time  to  its  final  ample  dimensions. 
In  its  enlarged  form  it  more  than  retained  the  favour  it 
had  already  won,  and  remains  to  this  day  the  most 
popular  of  his  writings.  Even  more  deserving  of  notice 
in  a  biography  of  his  son  are  his  excursions  into  the 
realm  of  political  history.  His  literary  studies  had  led 
him  on  to  an  Inquiry  into  the  Literary  and  Political 
Character  of  James  the  First,  in  which  he  strove  to  vindi- 
cate the  reputation  of  that  monarch  against  the  strictures 
of  historians  dominated  by  the  Whig  tradition;  and, 
pursuing  the  same  line  of  study,  he  gave  five  years  of 
his  life  to  an  elaborate  and  ambitious  treatise  intended 
to  perform  a  similar  office  for  James's  successor.  The 


14  ISAAC   D'ISRAELI  [CHAP,  n 

Commentaries  on  the  Life  and  Reign  of  Charles  I,  have 
long  been  superseded  by  the  works  of  later  historians  ; 
but  they  won  for  their  author  an  honorary  degree  at 
Oxford  to  which  he  was  presented  as  the  'optirni  regis 
vindex  optimus '  ;  and  they  have  won  for  him  also 
lasting  credit  as  one  of  the  first  of  English  historians  to 
recognise  the  value  and  attempt  the  exploration  of  the 
masses  of  manuscript  material  lodged  in  the  British 
Museum  and  elsewhere. 

Among  his  contemporaries  and  not  least  among  those 
whose  praise  was  best  worth  having,  Isaac  D'Israeli's 
reputation  stood  high.  Byron,  Scott,  Southey,  Rogers, 
were  all  among  his  admirers.  '  There's  a  man,'  said 
Rogers  to  Southey,  *  with  only  half  an  intellect  who 
writes  books  that  must  live.'  Byron  was  less  caustic 
in  his  appreciation.  '  I  don't  know  a  living  man's 
books,'  he  wrote  to  his  publisher,  'I  take  up  so  often 
—  or  lay  down  more  reluctantly  —  as  Israeli's  ; ' 1  'If 
there  is  anything  new  of  Israeli's  send  it  me.  .  . 
He  is  the  Bayle  of  literary  speculation  and  puts  together 
more  amusing  information  than  anybody.'2 

Shortly  after  the  publication  of  the  first  two  cantos 
of  Childe  Harold  Byron  and  D'Israeli  met,  apparently  not 
for  the  first  time,  and  a  scrap  in  Benjamin  Disraeli's 
hand  has  preserved  his  father's  recollection  of  his  inter- 
course with  the  poet. 

I  never  knew  a  man  with  a  more  modest,  gentlemanly,  and 
perfectly  unaffected  manner.  He  was  now  in  full  fame,  and 

1  Byron's  Letters  and  Journals  (Ed.:  R.  E.  Prothero),  IV.,  p.  274. 
The  letter  reproaches  Murray  for  his  indiscretion  in  showing  D'Israeli 
Byron's  copy    of  the  original  issue  of  the  Literally  Character    full  of 
marginal  notes  and  emendations.     This  copy  was  the  proximate  cause  of 
a  revised  and  enlarged  edition  of  that  work,  which  appeared  in  1818. 
Byron  read  the  book  in  its  new  form  and  added  notes  which  were 
embodied  in  the  edition  of  1822.     In  a  note  to  the  preface  of  the  1818 
edition  Byron  declared  that  he  had  read  D'Israeli's  works  '  oftener  than 
perhaps  those  of  any  English  writer  whatever,  except  such  as  treat  of 
Turkey.' 

2  Ibid.,  V.,  p.  390. 


INFLUENCE  ON  HIS  SON  15 

until  he  left  England  I  often  met  him.  He  treated  me  with 
so  much  respect  —  I  had  almost  said  reverence  —  that  I,  being  a 
somewhat  modest  and  retired  man,  thought  at  first  that  he 
was  quizzing  me,  but  I  soon  found  that  I  did  him  injustice. 
The  fact  is  my  works  being  all  about  the  feelings  of  literary 
men  were  exceedingly  interesting  to  him.  They  contained 
knowledge  which  he  could  get  nowhere  else.  It  was  all  new 
to  him.  He  told  me  that  he  had  read  my  works  over  and 
over  again.  I  thought  this,  of  course,  a  compliment,  but 
some  years  afterwards  found  it  to  be  true. 

D'Israeli  in  his  turn  was  of  course  not  behindhand 
in  appreciation  of  the  poet,  and  his  son  grew  to  man- 
hood in  a  household  where  the  name  of  Byron  was  always 
held  in  reverence.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  it  is  hard  to  believe 
that  the  father  was  really  in  sympathy  with  the  romantic 
movement  of  the  day.  His  true  idol  was  Pope,  and 
in  the  whole  complexion  of  his  mind  we  find  an  affinity 
with  the  eighteenth  century  rather  than  with  the  nine- 
teenth. The  son  was  more  deeply  penetrated  with 
the  spirit  of  the  later  time ;  and  he  had  the  daemonic 
force  which  his  father  lacked  and  which  that  spirit  calls 
for  or  inspires  in  its  votaries.  Yet  we  shall  find,  as 
we  proceed,  in  subtle  combination  with  very  different 
matter,  a  certain  eighteenth  century  element  in  the 
intellect  of  the  son  which,  unless  we  are  to  explain  it 
by  direct  inheritance  from  his  father,  was  doubtless 
the  result  of  early  education  and  of  constant  intercourse 
during  the  impressionable  age  with  a  mind  originally 
cast  in  the  eighteenth  century  mould. 

Isaac  D'Israeli's  works,  especially  the  Curiosities,  still 
have  their  readers,  but  his  reputation  has  hardly  rested 
at  the  level  to  which  it  rose  during  his  life.  It  is  as 
the  father  of  his  son  that  he  now  mainly  interests  us,  and 
as  a  capital  influence  in  the  formation  of  that  son's  mind 
and  character.  Superficially  the  resemblance  is  slight 
between  the  student  recluse  buried  in  his  books  and  the 
statesman  who  through  the  turmoil  of  public  life  forced 
his  way  to  fame  and  honour,  and  the  son  was  well  aware 
that  his  father  never  fully  understood  him ;  yet  he 


16  ISAAC   D'ISRAELI  [CHAP,  n 

assigned  to  his  father  a  foremost  place  among  the  few 
from  whose  wisdom  he  had  himself  drawn  profit,  and 
to  the  end  of  his  days  he  retained  the  most  unquestioning 
admiration  for  his  works  and  was  never  weary  of  paying 
affectionate  homage  to  his  genius  and  attainments.  If 
we  bear  in  memory  the  lineaments  of  the  father  as  drawn 
by  the  son,  we  shall  catch  in  the  son  himself  many  a 
suggestion  of  heredity  even  where  the  contrast  between 
the  two  seems  sharpest  and  where  resemblance  is  least 
to  be  expected.  Take,  for  instance,  the  following  :  — 

He  was  a  complete  literary  character,  a  man  who  really 
passed  his  life  in  his  library.  Even  marriage  produced  no 
change :  he  rose  to  enter  the  chamber  where  he  lived  alone 
with  his  books,  and  at  night  his  lamp  was  ever  lit  within  the 
same  walls.  Nothing,  indeed,  was  more  remarkable  than 
the  isolation  of  this  prolonged  existence.  .  .  .  He  disliked 
business,  and  he  never  required  relaxation ;  he  was  absorbed 
in  his  pursuits.  In  London  his  only  amusement  was  to 
ramble  among  booksellers  ;  if  he  entered  a  club,  it  was  only 
to  go  into  the  library.  In  the  country,  he  scarcely  ever 
left  his  room  but  to  saunter  in  abstraction  upon  a  terrace; 
muse  over  a  chapter,  or  coin  a  sentence.  He  had  not  a 
single  passion  or  prejudice:  all  his  convictions  were  the 
result  of  his  own  studies,  and  were  often  opposed  to  the 
impressions  which  he  had  early  imbibed.  He  not  only 
never  entered  into  the  politics  of  the  day,  but  he  could  never 
understand  them.  He  never  was  connected  with  any  par- 
ticular body  or  set  of  men ;  comrades  of  school  or  college, 
or  confederates  in  that  public  life  which,  in  England,  is, 
perhaps,  the  only  foundation  of  real  friendship. 

D'Israeli  the  elder  lived  through  one  of  the  most  stirring 
periods  in  the  history  of  the  world,  yet  in  all  his  corre- 
spondence there  is  hardly  an  allusion  to  passing  events. 
Not  the  sort  of  man,  one  would  say,  whose  son  was  likely 
to  become  Prime  Minister  of  England;  but  we  shall 
find  as  we  proceed  in  the  son  himself  something  of  the 
same  tendency  to  aloofness  and  isolation,  and  many  of 
the  habits  of  the  student  recluse  not  eradicated  though 
held  in  subordination  by  what  was  strenuous  and  enter- 
prising in  his  character  and  genius. 


CHARACTERISTICS  17 

Though  at  this  stage  it  is  in  part  an  anticipation,  one 
last  extract  from  the  Memoir  by  his  son  will  complete 
the  picture  of  Isaac  D'Israeli :  — 

On  his  moral  character  I  shall  scarcely  presume  to  dwell. 
The  philosophic  sweetness  of  his  disposition,  the  serenity 
of  his  lot,  and  the  elevating  nature  of  his  pursuits,  combined 
to  enable  him  to  pass  through  life  without  an  evil  act,  almost 
without  an  evil  thought.  As  the  world  has  always  been 
fond  of  personal  details  respecting  men  who  have  been 
celebrated,  I  will  mention  that  he  was  fair,  with  a  Bourbon 
nose,  and  brown  eyes  of  extraordinary  beauty  and  lustre. 
He  wore  a  small  black  velvet  cap,  but  his  white  hair  latterly 
touched  his  shoulders  in  curls  almost  as  flowing  as  in  his 
boyhood.  His  extremities  were  delicate  and  well-formed, 
and  his  leg,  at  his  last  hour,  as  shapely  as  in  his  youth,  which 
showed  the  vigour  of  his  frame.  Latterly  he  had  become 
corpulent.  He  did  not  excel  in  conversation,  though  in  his 
family  circle  he  was  garrulous.  Everything  interested  him, 
and  blind  and  eighty-two  he  was  still  as  susceptible  as  a 
child.  One  of  his  last  acts  was  to  compose  some  verses 
of  gay  gratitude  to  his  daughter-in-law,  who  was  his 
London  correspondent,  and  to  whose  lively  pen  he  was 
indebted  for  constant  amusement.  He  had  by  nature  a 
singular  volatility  which  never  deserted  him.  His  feelings, 
though  always  amiable,  were  not  painfully  deep,  and  amid 
joy  or  sorrow  the  philosophic  vein  was  ever '  evident.  He 
more  resembled  Goldsmith  than  any  man  that  I  can  compare 
him  to;  in  his  conversation,  his  apparent  confusion  of  ideas 
ending  with  some  felicikms  phrase  of  genius,  his  naivete, 
his  simplicity  not  untouched  with  a  dash  of  sarcasm 
affecting  innocence  —  one  was  often  reminded  of  the  gifted 
friend  of  Burke  and  Johnson.  There  was  however  one  trait 
in  which  my  father  did  not  resemble  Goldsmith ;  he  had  no 
vanity.  Indeed,  one  of  his  few  infirmities  was  rather  a 
deficiency  of  self-esteem. 


VOL.  i  —  c 


CHAPTER  III 

EARLY  YEARS 
1804-1821 

On  his  marriage  early  in  1802,  Isaac  D'Israeli,  who 
had  been  living  in  chambers  in  James  Street,  Adelphi, 
moved  to  6,  King's  Road,  Bedford  Row1,  and  there  at 
half-past  five  in  the  morning  of  Friday,  December  21, 
1804,  or  according  to  the  Jewish  reckoning  the  19th  of 
Tebet,  5565,  his  eldest  son  Benjamin  was  born.  On  the 
eighth  day  the  boy  was  duly  initiated  into  the  covenant 
of  Abraham,  the  rite  of  circumcision  being  performed  by 
a  relative  of  his  mother's,  David  Lindo.  Benjamin  was 
not  the  eldest  child,  for  a  daughter  Sarah  had  preceded 
him  on  December  29,  1802;  and  three  sons  were  to  follow 
—  Naphtali  (who  died  in  infancy)  in  1807,  Raphael 
(Ralph)  in  1809,  and  Jacobus  (James)  in  1813. 

The  glimpses  we  are  able  to  catch  at  this  distance  of 
time  of  the  future  statesman's  childhood  are  few  and  of 
slight  significance.  '  My  son  Ben  assures  me  you  are  in 
Brighton.  He  saw  you  !  Now,  he  never  lies,'  wrote 
Isaac  D'Israeli  from  Brighton,  where  he  was  a  frequent 
visitor,  to  his  friend  John  Murray  when  the  boy  was 

JNow  22,  Theobald's  Road.  The  house,  though  in  what  is  now 
a  noisy  thoroughfare,  has  a  pleasant  outlook  over  Gray's  Inn  Garden, 
and  is  marked  by  a  memorial  tablet  affixed  by  the  London  County  Council. 
Oddly  enough,  Lord  Beaconsfield  seems  never  to  have  been  certain  either 
of  the  place  of  his  birth  or  of  the  year  in  which  it  occurred. 

18 


1810-15]  SCHOOLS   AND  SCHOOLDAYS  19 

between  four  and  five.  Perhaps  not  only  truthfulness, 
but  a  certain  precocious  alertness,  is  to  be  deduced  from 
this.  At  the  age  of  six,  or  earlier,1  Benjamin  was  sent  to 
a  school  at  Islington  which  was  kept  by  a  Miss  Roper, 
and  which  is  described  by  one  who  knew  it  as  '  for  those 
days  a  very  high-class  establishment.'  Miss  Roper  had 
a  Bucks  connexion,  so  that  by  an  odd  coincidence 
Benjamin's  schoolmates  included  a  number  of  boys 
belonging  to  families  among  whom  the  Disraelis  after- 
wards settled  in  that  county.  From  Islington  in  process 
of  time  he  passed  to  a  school  of  higher  grade  kept  by  the 
Rev.  John  Potticany,  an  Independent  Minister,  it  is  said,2 
in  Elliott  Place,  Blackheath.  Here  the  atmosphere  we 
are  told,  was  liberal '  as  to  both  politics  and  religion,'  though 
most  of  the  boys  appear  to  have  attended  the  services 
of  the  Established  Church.  Probably  it  was  only  in  a 
school  of  a  certain  latitude  in  religious  matters  that 
room  could  be  found  in  those  days  for  a  professing  Jew  ; 
and  we  learn  that  Ben  was  not  only  allowed  to  stand 
back  at  prayer  time,  but  in  common  with  a  schoolfellow 
who  was  also  a  Jew  received  instruction  in  Hebrew  from 
a  Rabbi  who  visited  them  on  Saturdays.  Among  his 
contemporaries  at  Blackheath  was  Milner  Gibson,  the 
well-known  Radical  politician,  who  in  later  days  was  to 
sit  opposite  him  in  the  House  of  Commons.  From 
another  contemporary  we  get  a  pleasant  picture  of  Mr. 
Potticany's  most  distinguished  pupil :  — 

When  my  father  took  me  to  school  he  handed  me  over 
to  Ben,  as  he  always  called  him.  I  looked  up  to  him  as  a  big 
boy,  aiid  very  kind  he  was  to  me,  making  me  sit  next  to  him 
in  play  hours,  and  amusing  me  with  stories  of  robbers  and 
caves,  illustrating  them  with  rough  pencil  sketches,  which  he 
continually  rubbed  out  to  make  way  for  fresh  ones.  He  was 
a  very  rapid  reader,  was  fond  of  romances,  and  would  often 
let  me  sit  by  him  and  read  the  same  book,  good-naturedly 
waiting  before  turning  a  leaf  till  he  knew  I  had  reached  the 
bottom  of  the  page.  He  was  very  fond  of  playing  at  horses, 

1  So  early  that    he    used    afterwards    to    say  he   believed  he  was 
sent  there  to  learn  to  speak. 

2  Jeioish  Chronicle,  May  29,  1868. 


20  EARLY  YEARS  [CHAP,  in 

and  would  often  drive  me  and  another  boy  as  a  pair  with 
string  reins.  He  was  always  full  of  fun  ;  and  at  Midsummer, 
when  he  went  home  for  the  holidays  in  the  basket  of  the 
Blaekheath  coach,  fired  away  at  the  passers-by  with  his  pea- 
shooter.1 

Another  and  less  friendly  account,  which  appears  to 
be  based  on  the  recollections  of  his  Jewish  schoolfellow, 
describes  Disraeli  as 

a  lazy  boy  who  excelled  in  none  of  the  school  exercises.  How- 
ever, he  would  amuse  his  companions  on  a  wet  half-holiday 
with  a  little  extemporised  drama.  Being  able  to  draw  he 
would  also  construct  a  castle  in  paper  as  the  scene  of  the 
adventures  which  he  described.  He  had  a  taste  not  un- 
common among  schoolboys  for  little  acts  of  bargaining  and 
merchandise.  .  .  .  Mr.  Potticany  forbade  newspapers, 
but  a  clique,  of  which  the  two  Jew  boys  were  members,  were 
allowed  to  take  in  Bell's  Weekly  Messenger.  So  far  as  politics, 
the  talk  of  the  embryo  Premier  was  pronounced  Toryish. 

According  to  this  writer  the  youthful  Benjamin  was 
not  only  dramatist  but  actor  ;  in  a  school  performance  of 
*  The  Merchant  of  Venice  '  he  took  the  part  of  Gratiano, 
but  failed  to  win  applause.2 

Meagre  indeed,  in  other  respects,  is  our  knowledge  of 
those  schooldays  at  Blackheath,  though  they  extended 
into  a  good  many  years.  In  both  the  reminiscences  that 
have  been  cited  we  find  touches  that  remind  us  of  Disraeli's 
own  pictures  of  the  boyhood  of  his  heroes  in  Vivian  Grey 
and  Contarini  Fleming  ;  and  these  two  novels  in  their 
turn,  which  have  an  autobiographic  significance  above 
that  of  all  the  others,  may  help  us  to  imagine  what 
manner  of  boy  their  author  must  have  been.  Like  both 
his  heroes  we  may  surmise  that  he  was  daring  and  im- 
petuous, sometimes  perhaps  mutinous  and  pugnacious  ; 

1  Rev.  E.  Jones  in  the    Standard  of  April    28,    1887.     Mr.  Jones 
was  only  six    months  younger  than  his  protector,  who    had  no  doubt, 
however,    both    physically  and    mentally,    the  precocious  development 
of  his  race. 

2  Jewish    Chronicle,   May  29,   1868.     Published  soon    after  Disraeli 
had  become  Prime  Minister  for  the  first  time,  these  recollections  are  open 
to  the  suspicion  of  having  taken  a  colour  from  the  political  aninras  of 
later  years. 


1816]  HIS   GRANDFATHER'S  DEATH  21 

keenly  sensitive  and  warmly  affectionate ;  a  leader  when 
he  chose  to  lead,  but  somewhat  isolated  and  much  given 
to  reverie  and  castle  building.  According  to  a  recollec- 
tion of  his  brother  Ralph's  he  was  fond  of  'playing  at 
Parliament '  in  the  holidays,  and  always  reserved  for  him- 
self the  part  of  leader  and  spokesman  of  the  Govern- 
ment, keeping  the  others,  somewhat  to  their  annoyance, 
in  the  cold  shades  of  opposition.  Of  Benjamin's  studies 
at  Blackheath  we  know  nothing  at  all.  The  only  letter 
of  his  early  years  that  has  come  down  to  us  is  severely 
laconic  and  gives  us  no  assistance.  It  owes  its  preserva- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  reverse  of  the  paper  on  which  it 
is  written  afforded  space  for  one  of  his  father's  multi- 
farious notes,  and  it  runs  :  *  Dear  Mama,  —  I  have  arrived 
safe.  B.  D'Israeli.'  From  a  letter  by  his  grandfather 
which  has  also  floated  down,  and  which  incidentally  gives 
us  a  pleasant  taste  of  the  kind-hearted  old  man  who  wrote 
it,  we  hear  of  a  serious  illness  by  which  the  child  was 
stricken  in  a  summer  vacation  of  this  period.  In  August, 
1816,  Benjamin  D'Israeli  the  elder  writes  to  a  relation  :  — 
'  We  are  now  in  great  anxiety  for  poor  little  Ben,  who  has 
been  very  ill.  ...  I  am  very  much  alarmed  by  the 
account  I  have  from  Isaac,  and  very  much  afeard.  God 
preserve  him  and  grant  that  he  may  get  the  better  and 
recover ! '  '  Little  Ben '  recovered,  but  three  months  later 
the  grandfather  died. 

His  death  proved  in  its  indirect  consequences  an  impor- 
tant event  in  the  life  of  the  child.  In  the  first  place,  Isaac 
D'Israeli,  grown  more  affluent  now  by  the  accession  of 
his  father's  fortune,  moved  in  the  course  of  the  follow- 
ing year  from  King's  Road  to  6,  Bloomsbury  Square,1 
a  better  house  with  the  further  advantage  of  closer 
neighbourhood  to  the  British  Museum.  Here  he  resided 
till  twelve  years  later  he/  left  London  for  the  coun- 
try and  here  his  eldest  son  grew  up  to  manhood.  In 
the  religious  history  of  the  family  the  removal  of  the 

1  This  house  also  is  marked  by  a  tablet  affixed  by  the  London 
County  Council  in  accordance  with  their  excellent  practice. 


22  EARLY  YEARS  [CHAIMII 

grandfather  from  the  scene  was  quickly  followed  by 
serious  developments  which  his  presence  had  delayed. 
By  temperament  and  training  Isaac  D' Israeli  was  ultra- 
liberal  or  Laodicean  in  his  attitude  towards  the  traditional 
faith ;  his  mother,  we  know,  had  little  affection  for  it ; 
and  some  of  the  Basevi  family  into  which  he  had  married 
shared  his  dislike  for  the  narrow  orthodoxy  which  was 
still  supreme  in  the  Synagogue.  Nevertheless  his  children 
were  until  their  grandfather's  death  brought  up  in  the 
Jewish  faith,  special  provision  being  made  as  we  have 
seen  for  the  religious  instruction  of  his  eldest  son  in  Mr. 
Potticany's  establishment ;  and  though  Isaac  himself 
neither  attended  the  Synagogue  nor  took  any  interest 
in  its  affairs  he  paid  his  dues  regularly  and  would  no  doubt 
have  been  content  to  retain  his  nominal  connexion  with 
it  if  only  he  had  been  left  in  peace.  But  in  1813  he  was 
for  some  pedantic  reason  elected  Parnass  or  Warden  of 
the  Congregation  of  Bevis  Marks;  and  on  his  writing 
to  the  Mahamad  or  Chamber  of  Elders  to  point  out  the 
*  singular  impropriety '  of  the  choice,  and  to  decline 
the  office,  he  was  fined  .£40,  and  told  that  his  election 
was  in  strict  accordance  with  the  laws  of  the  Congrega- 
tion. The  quarrel  was  pursued  with  curious  obstinacy  on 
the  part  of  the  Elders  and  growing  irritation  on  the 
part  of  their  rebellious  colleague.  A  long  letter  of 
remonstrance  which  D'Israeli  wrote  in  December,  1813, 
defines  his  attitude  :  — 

A  person  who  has  always  lived  out  of  the  sphere  of  your 
observation;  of  retired  habits  of  life ;  who  can  never  unite 
in  your  public  worship,  because,  as  now  conducted,  it  disturbs, 
instead  of  exciting,  religious  emotions,  a  circumstance  of 
general  acknowledgment;  who  has  only  tolerated  some  part 
of  your  ritual,  willing  to  concede  all  he  can  in  those  matters 
which  he  holds  to  be  indifferent ;  —  such  a  man,  with  but 
a  moderate  portion  of  honour  and  understanding,  never  can 
accept  the  solemn  functions  of  an  Elder  in  your  congregation, 
and  involve  his  life,  and  distract  his  pursuits,  not  in  temporary 
but  in  permanent  duties  always  repulsive  to  his  feelings. 

Though  in  this  letter  he  threatened  to  withdraw  from 


1817]  BREACH  WITH   THE   SYNAGOGUE  23 

their  society,  the  dispute  did  not  as  yet  come  to  any 
definite  head.  Without  rescinding  their  decrees  the 
Elders  were  content  for  the  present  not  to  enforce  them ; 
but  three  years  later  they  renewed  their  demands  and 
D'Israeli,  no  longer  under  the  restraint  of  his  father's 
influence,  responded  by  insisting  that  his  name  should  be 
erased  from  the  list  of  their  members.  His  resignation 
was  not  formally  accepted  till  several  years  had  elapsed, 
but  the  connexion  of  the  D'Israeli  family  with  the  Syna- 
gogue was  now  at  an  end. 

Isaac  D'Israeli  though  he  ceased  to  be  a  Jew  never 
became  a  Christian  ;  and  apparently  he  saw  no  reason 
at  first  why  his  children  should  not  remain  in  the  same 
amphibious  condition.  'It  was  Mr.  Sharon  Turner1 
who  persuaded  my  father  —  after  much  trouble  —  to 
allow  his  children  to  be  baptized.  He,  one  day,  half 
consented,  upon  which  Mr.  Turner  called  on  the  day 
following  and  took  us  off  to  St.  Andrew's,  Holborn.' 
This  was  Lord  Beaconsfield's  account  of  the  matter 
in  his  later  days,  and  no  doubt  it  fairly  represents  the 
general  situation  ;  but  like  many  of  his  autobiographic 
recollections  it  is  inaccurate  in  detail,  for  the  children 
were  not  all  baptized  on  one  day.  Benjamin  himself 
was  received  into  the  Church  on  July  31,  1817,  the  two 
younger  boys,  Ralph  and  James,  having  preceded  him 
earlier  in  the  month,  and  his  sister  following  after  a  short 
interval.  No  one  could  have  foreseen  how  fruitful  in 
great  consequences  this  event  was  to  be — neither  the 
Elders  of  the  Synagogue  who  forced  the  rupture,  nor 
the  Voltairian  father,  nor  the  zealous  family  friend,  nor 
Mr.  Thimbleby  who  in  Benjamin's  case  performed  the 
ceremony  of  baptism.  If  the  gentlemen  of  the  Mahamad 
had  shown  less  obstinacy  or  more  worldly  wisdom  —  and  it 
was  only,  we  are  told,  a  question  of  two  or  three  votes  — 
that  strange  political  career  which  was  to  fascinate  a 
later  generation  might  well  have  been  impossible. 

Whether  it  was  that  the    change    of  religion  made   a 

1  The  well-known  historian  of  Anglo-Saxon  England. 


24  EARLY  YEARS  [CHAP,  in 

change  of  school  seem  desirable,  or  that,  as  there  is  some 
reason  to  suspect,  the  establishment  at  Blackheath  was 
closed,  Benjamin  about  this  time  entered  on  a  new  stage 
of  his  education.  He  was  transferred  to  'a  school  in 
Epping  Forest  where  there  were  about  50  or  60  boys, 
and  where,'  as  he  once  told  Lord  Rowton  after  reading  in 
some  hostile  article  a  sneer  at  his  un-English  Education, 
'the  whole  drama  of  Public  School  life  was  acted  in  a 
smaller  theatre.'  The  head  of  the  school  was  a  Unitarian 
Minister,  the  Rev.  Eli  Cogan. 

There  were  two  brothers  Cogan,  the  eldest  a  physician  and 
a  man  of  mark  in  his  day.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  Humane 
Society,  having  brought  the  idea  from  Holland.  Dr.  Cogan 
had  travelled  much  and  was  a  member  of  foreign  Universities. 
He  published  his  travels  in  Germany  and  Holland  and  other 
works.  His  brother  was  not  a  public  character,  but  Dr.  Parr 
said  of  him  that  he  was  the  only  Nonconformist  who  was 
a  Greek  scholar.1  He  was  a  complete  one ;  of  the  Person 
school,  and  was  really  intended  by  Nature  for  a  College  Don. 
My  father  made  his  acquaintance  at  a  bookseller's  shop, 
where  Cogan  purchased  always  the  finest  editions  in  the  finest 
condition.  My  father  assumed  for  a  long  time  that  he  was 
a  clergyman.  When  he  discovered  that  he  was  a  schoolmaster, 
he  thought  I  should  be  his  pupil.  I  was  thirteen,  or  about  to 
be  thirteen,  when  I  went  to  him,  at  Higham  Hall,  an  old 
manor  house,  about  two  miles  from  Walthamstow.  Noth- 
ing was  thought  of  there  but  the  two  dead  languages,  but  he 
was  an  admirable  instructor  in  them  as  well  as  a  first  rate 
scholar. 

I  remained  there  four  years,  and  was  quite  fit  to  have  gone 
to  a  University  when  I  left  Cogan —  I  mean,  I  did  not  require 
any  preliminary  cramming  at  a  private  tutor's.  Not  that 
I  was  more  advanced  than  other  boys  of  my  age :  not  so 
advanced,  and  never  could  reach  the  first  class,  which  con- 
sisted once  of  only  one  boy,  Stratton,  afterwards  at  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  and  who,  it  was  supposed,  was  to  have 
carried  everything  before  him  there,  and  everywhere  else, 
but  I  have  never  heard  of  him  since.  The  first  class  dealt 
with  ^Eschylus,  Aristophanes,  Aristotle,  Plato,  and  the  Greek 

1  'I  am  almost  entirely,  and  in  Greek  altogether,  self-taught,' 
says  Mr.  Cogan  himself  in  a  letter  to  Isaac  D'Israeli,  '  and  have 
been  obliged  to  acquire  without  assistance  when  a  man  what  ought  to 
have  been  communicated  to  me  when  a  boy.' 


1817-19]  COGAN'S  25 

Orators.  I  never  could  reach  this  stage,  though  I  listened  to 
many  of  the  interpretations  and  expositions  of  the  master 
with  interest  and  admiration.  Though  a  very  reserved, 
shy,  calm  man,  his  whole  being  became  animated  when  he 
was  interpreting  a  great  classic  writer.  This  I  fully  ex- 
perienced when  I  went  before  him  with  my  Terence.  After 
our  dull  construing,  he  would  himself  interpret  the  scene. 
It  was  acting  —  full  of  humor. 

However,  though  I  never  reached  the  first  class,  and  was 
not  eminent  even  in  the  second,  I  learnt,  or  rather  read  a 
great  deal  in  those  years.  In  Greek,  all  Herodotus ;  much  of 
Thucydides ;  the  greater  part  of  the  Iliad ;  something  of  the 
Odyssey;  the  Ajax,  (Edipus  Rex  and  Antigone  of  Sophocles; 
the  Medea,  Hippolytus  and  Alcestis  of  Euripides ;  Theocritus, 
the  Idylls  (my  copy  is  now  in  the  Library  with  notes)1; 
and  Xenophon,  the  Retreat  and  part  of  the  Cyropcedia.  In 
Latin  he  bathed  us  in  Cicero,  and  always  impressed  on  us 
that,  so  far  as  style  was  concerned,  in  lucid  arrangement 
of  subject,  and  power  of  expression  the  Pro  Milone  was  an 
education  in  itself;  Caesar;  much  of  Livy ;  something  of 
Tacitus ;  all  Virgil  and  Horace ;  some  of  the  best  things 
in  Catullus  and  the  elegiac  poets;  the  first  book  of  Lucretius; 
and  all  Terence.2 

The  accounts  which  Disraeli  gives  of  his  early 
years,  in  such  fragments  of  autobiography,  letters,  notes, 
and  conversations  as  have  come  down  to  us,  are  not 
easy  to  harmonise.  Mr.  Potticany's  school  he  nowhere 
mentions,  and  in  later  years  the  memory  of  Higham  Hill 
seems  to  have  absorbed  many  of  the  recollections  both 
of  what  preceded  and  what  followed  in  his  education.  It  is 
probable  that  his  stay  at  Cogan's  was  a  good  deal  shorter 
than  he  makes  it  in  the  account  just  cited.  In  another 
narrative  he  himself  reduces  the  period  to  two  or  three 
years  ;  and  the  best  conjecture  would  appear  to  be  that 
he  left  about  the  end  of  his  fifteenth  year,  and  during 
the  couple  of  years  that  followed  continued  his  educa- 

1  Perhaps    Disraeli    had    this  copy  in    mind  when    in    a  somewhat 
imaginative  piece  of  autobiography  which  he  once  addressed  to  a  cor- 
respondent he  wrote :  —  'In  the  pride  of  boyish  erudition  I  edited  the 
Adonisian  Eclogue  of  Theocritus,  which  was  privately  printed.    This  was 
my  first  production  :  puerile  pedantry. ' 

2  Autobiographic  note  written  for  Lord  Rowton. 


26  EARLY  YEARS  [CHAP,  in 

tion  at  home,  probably,  as  the  same  narrative  informs 
us,  under  the  guidance  of  a  private  tutor.  With  this 
version  a  diary  of  studies  for  the  year  1820  that  has 
come  down  to  us  in  a  mutilated  form  would  appear 
best  to  harmonise ;  it  certainly  bears  out  a  further 
statement  that  his  education  was  at  this  time  'severely 
classical. '  Readers  of  Vivian  Grrey  will  recollect  how 
the  boy  when  he  went  to  Burnsley  Vicarage,  'although 
more  deficient  than  most  of  his  own  age  in  accurate 
classical  knowledge,  found  himself  in  talents,  and  various 
acquirements,  immeasurably  their  superior,'  and  how 
afterwards  when  he  'sat  down  to  read'  at  home, 
'twelve  hours  a  day,  and  self-banishment  from  society, 
overcame  in  twelve  months  the  ill  effects  of  his  imperfect 
education.'  The  same  tale  is  told  in  almost  the  same 
words  of  Contarini  Fleming,  and  though  we  may  doubt 
whether  young  Disraeli  was  equally  successful  in  overcom- 
ing the  defects  of  early  training,  it  is  clear  that  he  made 
an  heroic  attempt.  In  the  list  of  authors  which  he  claims 
to  have  read  while  at  Higham  Hill  there  is  probably  a 
good  deal  of  anticipation  of  subsequent  study,  but  the 
testimony  of  the  diary  is  all  in  favour  of  its  virtual 
accuracy.  Questions  have  been  sometimes  raised  as 
to  the  extent  of  Disraeli's  classical  acquirements,  and 
he  has  been  accused  in  this  connexion  of  pretending  to 
knowledge  which  he  did  not  really  possess.  The  truth 
would  seem  to  be  that  he  contrived  at  this  time  to  make 
himself  a  fair  Latin  scholar  and  retained  in  after  life 
a  moderate  familiarity  with  the  great  Roman  authors  ; 
but  that  his  Greek  was  scanty  in  the  beginning,  and,  in 
spite  of  his  efforts  after  leaving  school,  remained  scanty 
to  the  end.  A  thorough  training  in  the  Greek  language 
and  a  better  acquaintance  with  Greek  literature  might 
have  been  wholesome  discipline  for  a  mind  that  was  too 
apt  to  be  slipshod  and  a  taste  that  was  too  apt  to  be 
artificial.  But  the  Disraeli  that  we  know  would  not  have 
been  himself  if  he  had  received  the  stamp  that  a  public 
school  education  places  upon  intellect  and  character. 


1820]  CLASSICAL   STUDIES  27 

The  diary  reveals  the  lack  of  that  severe  grounding  in 
the  elements  which  smooths  the  approach  to  the  classical 
authors  for  the  clever  public  school  boy  ;  but  they  show 
also  a  precocity  of  mind,  a  readiness  to  appraise  and  criti- 
cise, and  a  confidence  in  passing  judgment  that  would  be 
no  less  alien  to  the  public  school  boy  of  fifteen  than  the 
frequent  blunders  in  Greek  accidence  by  which  its  pages 
are  disfigured.  A  few  extracts  will  bring  us  closer  to 
the  mind  of  the  youthful  student  :  — 

Monday  [May?]. — Lucian  —  his  Timon  increases  in  inter- 
est. Terence,  the  Eunuch.  French  —  read  the  sensible  pre- 
face of  M.  Marmontel  to  the  Henriade.  Livy  —  finished  the 
Speech  of  Camillus.  Writing,  ciphering,  &c. ;  prepared  my 
Greek  ;  made  Latin  verses;  grammar. 

Friday,  June  2nd — Lucian.  Terence  —  the  Addplii,  which 
promises  to  be  an  interesting  play.  Henriade.  Writing, 
ciphering.  Virgil  —  2nd  book  of  the  Georgics,  which  begins 
with  a  splendid  invocation  to  Bacchus ;  it,  however,  all 
vanishes  in  a  sleepy  lecture  on  grafting  boughs  and  lopping 
trees.  Prepared  Greek,  Read  Webb  on  the  Greek  metres; 
the  author  is  not  very  profound,  yet  it  is  an  useful  work  for  a 
Tyro.  Grammar,  &c. 

Lucian,  as  various  entries  show,  he  read  with  no  small 
relish,  and  to  the  impression  then  produced  we  are  no 
doubt  in  part  indebted  for  Ixion  and  The  Infernal  Marriage. 
The  future  leader  of  the  agricultural  Party  was  at  first 
at  all  events  disappointed  with  the  Greorgics.  He  admired 
indeed  the  '  extraordinary  elegance  of  the  versification, ' 
but  thought  'the  celebration  of  ploughshares,  of  fallow 
land,  and  rainy  days '  but  a  poor  subject  for  the  genius 
of  a  great  poet.  In  course  of  time,  however,  apprecia- 
tion grew,  and  Lucretius  from  the  first  filled  him  with 
enthusiasm  :  — 

Wednesday.  —  Demosthenes,  Philipp.  1.  I  find  it  difficult. 
Lucretius  —  most  beautiful :  his  invocation  to  Venus  is  very 
elegant  and  his  description  of  Religion  with  her  head  among 
the  clouds  is  sublime.  Apollonius  E/hodius.  Gibbon,  Vol. 
12. 

Friday.  —  Georgics,  Bk.  2nd,  430  line  ;  this  glorious  passage 
is  evidently  imitated  from  Lucretius ;  but  it  is  the  finest 


28  EARLY  YEARS  [CHAP,  m 

specimen  of  versification  that  any  language  has  ever  produced. 
Horace  —  read  six  odes,  1st  Bk.  with  myself. 

Saturday.  —  This  evening  I  again  with  increased  admira- 
tion compared  the  passages  of  Lucretius  and  Virgil.  I  wonder 
extremely  that  Lucretius  is  not  a  greater  favourite.  .  .  . 

Friday. —  Lucretius  —  on  Death  :  a  sublime  chapter,  full  of 
original  and  grand  ideas,  but  the  versification  is  rugged  and 
wants  the  harmonious  flow  of  Virgil. 

An  independent  attack  upon  the  Iliad  leads  to  a 
curious  outburst  against  his  unlucky  editor  :  — 

Tuesday.  —  Euripides  —  Alcestis,  to  98  line.  Verses.  Cicero 
— the  Oration  for  Milo.  Latin  Exercise.  Drawing.  Began  with 
myself  the  Iliad,  Valpy's  Edition ;  the  notes  are  prolix  and 
numerous,  but  little  information  is  to  be  gleaned  from  them. 
Valpy  rejects  the  digamma  and  supports  the  ridiculous  theory 
of  the  self-sufficient  Professor  of  Edinburgh.  The  Doctor 
and  the  Professor  are  equally  contemptible.  They  mistake 
incapacity  for  originality,  and  endeavour  to  compensate 
for  their  moderate  talents  by  rejecting  every  established 
rule  and  advocating  every  ridiculous  system.  One  libels 
Heyne  and  the  other  criticizes  Hermann.  Illumined  by  such 
stars  as  these,  surely  the  horizon  of  classical  literature  can 
never  be  clouded ! 

Greek  metres,  'a  dry  but,  I  am  afraid,  necessary  study,' 
were  a  sore  affliction  :  but  the  young  student  was  not 
easily  discouraged. 

Friday.  —  Again  at  the  Greek  Metres  —  bewildered  !  lost ! 
miserable  work,  indeed.  Writing.  Prepared  Greek.  Read 
Gibbon,  Vol.  9.  Homer  —  the  Iliad,  Bk.  1st  by  myself. 

Saturday.  —  Read  Literary  Character  [his  father's  essay], 
3  first  chapters. 

Monday.  —  Lucian,  E/c«Xr;o-ia  ®r)<av  [sic].  Tibullus,  Lib.  3, 
Eleg.  6.  Henriade.  Gibbon  —  Vol.  9.  Livy.  The  Speech 
of  Minutius  and  Fa.  Maximus.  Greek  metres  —  a  ray  of 
light.  Latin  verses.  Homer  with  myself. 

Wednesday.  —  Greek  metres  —  tolerable  success. 

Demosthenes,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  found  easy,  nor 
at  first  did  he  inspire  much  admiration. 


1820]  CLASSICAL   STUDIES  29 

Whether  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  my  difficulty  in  understand- 
ing him  or  to  my  deficiency  of  taste,  I  know  not,  but  I  must 
own  I  rather  prefer  the  elegant  and  musical  Orations  of 
Cicero.  I  have  a  prejudice  against  Demosthenes,  and,  though 
his  speeches  are  replete  with  Virtue,  Patriotism  and  Courage, 
history  tells  me  he  was  a  Villain,  a  Partisan,  and  a  Poltroon ! 

Presently,  however,  we  find  the  entry,  'Demosthenes, 
irapa  [sic]  TOW  <rre<$>avov  a  most  eloquent  and  irresistible 
passage' ;  and  a  complacent  repetition  of  the  blunder 
makes  us  suspect  that  deficiency  of  Greek  as  much  as 
deficiency  of  taste  determined  the  initial  want  of  appre- 
ciation. Finally,  in  spite  of  every  obstacle,  the  Crown 
Oration  arouses  real  enthusiasm  :  — 

Friday.  —  Demosth.  Orat.  de  Corona.  In  my  lesson  of 
to-day  is  included  that  magnificent  passage  in  which  the 
Athenian  Orator  swears  by  the  warriors  of  Marathon  and  the 
day  of  Salamis,  and  a  more  eloquent  and  enchanting  passage 
mortal  hand  never  penned,  mortal  ear  never  heard.  The 
eloquence  of  Demosthenes  is  indeed  irresistible,  and  while 
we  peruse  the  pages  of  his  genius,  we  lose  our  prejudices 
against  the  man  in  our  admiration  of  the  orator.  At  length 
I  must  own  that  Cicero  is  his  inferior.  .  .  .  We  admire 
in  Cicero  the  well-turned  sentence  and  the  cadenced  period, 
the  subtile  argument,  and  the  acute  remark.  But  in  reading 
Demosthenes  we  think  not  of  these,  our  imagination  is  fired, 
our  enthusiasm  awakened,  and  even  I,  I  who  have  been 
obliged  to  wade  through  his  beauties,  with  a  hateful  lexicon 
at  my  side,  have  often  wished  to  have  lived  in  the  olden  time, 
when  Philip  was  King  of  Macedon  and  Demosthenes  dema- 
gogue of  Athens. 

Pericles,  of  course,  was  his  favourite  among  Athenian 
statesmen,  '  the  greatest  and  most  accomplished  of  the 
characters  of  antiquity,  his  policy  sound,  his  judgment 
unequalled.' 

Tuesday.  —  Read  Gibbon  —  the  factions  of  the  Theatre  are 
described  with  his  usual  felicity,  but  I  think  he  has  not  made 
the  most  of  the  character  of  Belisarius.  He  speaks,  I  think, 
too  slightingly  of  Justinian,  a  monarch  who,  with  all  his 
faults  and  weaknesses,  was  infinitely  superior  to  the  rest  of 
the  later  Roman  Emperors. 

Saturday,  Sept.  9.  —  Apollonius  Rhodius  ['  this  weak 
gentleman,'  as  he  elsewhere  calls  him]  ....  Cicero's 


30  EARLY  YEARS  [CHAP,  in 

Oration  for  Milo  ['impressive  eloquence,  well-timed  irony, 
and  subtle  reasoning ']....  Gibbon,  his  chapter  on 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  —  as  usual 

Sapping  a  solemn  creed  with  solemn  sneer.1 

Tuesday.  — ....  Read  Mitford :  he  is  deeply  versed  in 
Greek  literature,  but  his  style  is  wretched,  nay,  scarcely 
English,  a  striking  contrast  to  the  cadenced  periods  of  the 
Decline  and  Fall. 

Thursday.  —  Voltaire  —  Critique  on  the  (Edipus  of  Sopho- 
cles. Some  just  criticism  mixed  with  much  frivolity  and  bad 
taste.  .  .  . 

He  then  reads  the  (Edipe,  but  with  little  satisfaction ; 
and  '  a  furious  denunciation  against  Oracles  and  Supersti- 
tion, brazen  pipes  and  flagitious  priests,'  which  he  finds 
in  it  moves  him  to  the  following  reflection :  '  This  is  a 
speech  worthy  of  a  French  Illuming  ;  but  in  the  heroic 
age  Philosophers  did  not  exist,  and  the  good  men  were 
contented  to  obey  and  consult  those  institutions  which 
from  their  youth  upward  they  were  taught  to  respect 
and  reverence.'  An  intimate  friend  of  Disraeli's  once, 
in  a  moment  of  pique,  described  him  as  a  Voltairian  in 
religion.  The  description  was  not  very  happy,  for,  as 
these  boyish  jottings  alone  would  show,  the  Voltairian 
spirit  aroused  an  instinctive  antagonism  in  a  mind 
cast  from  the  beginning  in  the  Semitic  mould.  And 
yet  even  thus  early  the  subtle  contradictions  of  a  most 
complex  character  reveal  themselves.  In  a  note-book, 
which  is  probably  not  later  than  the  period  we  have 
reached,  we  find  this  pencil  entry  in  Disraeli's  hand : 
'Resolution. — To  be  always  sincere  and  open  with  Mrs. 
E.  Never  to  say  but  what  I  mean — point  de  moquerie, 
in  which  she  thinks  I  excel.'  Who  'Mrs.  E.'  may  have 
been  does  not  appear,  but  an  anecdote  that  has  floated 
down  from  the  school-days  at  Cogan's  bears  witness  to 
her  discernment.  The  boys  at  Higham  Hill  who  were 
members  of  the  Church  of  England  had  to  walk  some 

i  Childe  Harold,  III.  107. 


1817-19]  ANECDOTE   OF   COGAN'S  31 

distance  on  Sundays  to  attend  morning  service ;  and  it 
resulted  from  this  that  they  fared  rather  badly  at  the 
midday  dinner,  which  was  usually  half  over  by  the  time 
they  got  back.  Disraeli  was  himself  among  the  victims, 
and  his  new  religion  had  as  yet  aroused  in  him  none  of 
the  zeal  of  a  martyr ;  so  he  solemnly  threw  out  the 
suggestion  to  his  Anglican  companions  that  it  might 
be  as  well  if  they  all  became  Unitarians  for  the  term  of 
their  life  at  school. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LAW  AND  TRAVEL 
1821-1824 

At  seventeen,  Disraeli  tells  us,  a  great  change  took 
place  in  his  life.  In  November,  1821,  he  was  articled 
to  a  firm  of  solicitors  in  the  City  —  Messrs.  Swain,  Stevens, 
Maples,  Pearse,  and  Hunt,  of  Frederick's  Place,  Old 
Jewry. 

My  father  had  a  great  friend,  the  head  of  the  most  eminent 
solicitors'  firm  in  the  City,  except  Freshfield's,  of  whom  they 
were  the  honored  rivals.  He  was  very  rich  (the  firm  of  five 
partners  divided,  though  in  unequal  portions,  fifteen  thousand 
per  annum'),  a  man  of  considerable  taste,  with  a  fine  library 
and  collections  of  art,  and  one  daughter,  by  no  means  without 
charm,  either  personally  or  intellectually.  This  gentleman 
wished  that  I  should  enter  into  his  profession,  and,  in  due 
course,  his  firm,  and  the  parents  wished  and  meant  something 
else,  also  in  due  course.  .  .  .  My  father  was  very  warm 
about  this  business :  the  only  time  in  his  life  in  which  he 
exerted  authority,  always,  however,  exerted  with  affection. 
I  had  some  scruples,  for  even  then  I  dreamed  of  Parliament. 
My  father's  refrain  always  was  Philip  Carteret  Webb,  who  was 
the  most  eminent  solicitor  of  his  boyhood  and  who  was  an 
M.P. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  two  years  and 
more  that  I  was  in  the  office  of  our  friend  were  wasted.  I 
have  often  thought,  though  I  have  often  regretted  the  Uni- 
versity, that  it  was  much  the  reverse.  My  business  was  to 
be  the  private  secretary  of  the  busiest  partner  of  our  friend. 
He  dictated  to  me  every  day  his  correspondence,  which  was 
as  extensive  as  a  Minister's,  and  when  the  clients  arrived  I 
did  not  leave  the  room,  but  remained  not  only  to  learn  my 
business  but  to  become  acquainted  with  my  future  clients. 
They  were  in  general  men  of  great  importance  —  bank  direc- 
tors, East  India  directors,  merchants,  bankers.  Often  extra- 

32 


1821-24]  IN   A   SOLICITOR'S   OFFICE  33 

ordinary  scenes  when  firms  in  the  highest  credit  came  to 
announce  and  prepare  for  their  impending  suspension ; 
questions,  too,  where  great  amounts  were  at  stake ;  the 
formation,  too,  of  companies,  &c.,  &c.  It  gave  me  great 
facility  with  my  pen  and  no  inconsiderable  knowledge  of 
human  nature. 

Unfortunately,  if  indeed  I  ought  to  use  the  word,  the 
rest  of  my  life  was  not  in  harmony  with  this  practice  and 
business.  I  passed  my  evenings  at  home,  alone,  and  always 
in  deep  study.  This  developed  at  last  different  feelings 
and  views  to  those  which  I  had  willingly  but  too  quickly 
adopted  when  I  was  little  more  than  seventeen.  I  became 
pensive  and  restless,  and  before  I  was  twenty  I  was  obliged 
to  terminate  the  dream  of  my  father  and  his  friend.  Nothing 
would  satisfy  me  but  travel.  My  father  then  made  a  feeble 
effort  for  Oxford,  but  the  hour  of  adventure  had  arrived.  I 
was  unmanageable.  Let  me  say  one  word  about  the  lady. 
She  said  to  me  one  day,  and  before  I  had  shown  any  indica- 
tion of  my  waywardness,  '  You  have  too  much  genius  for 
Frederick's  Place :  it  will  never  do.' 

We  were  good  friends.  She  married  a  Devonshire  gentle- 
man and  was  the  mother  of  two  general  officers,  of  whom 
we  have  heard  a  good  deal  of  late  [Zulu  War,  1879],  and  whom 
I  employed  as  a  Minister !  Such  is  life  ! 

The  '  two  years  and  more '  in  Frederick's  Place  really 
stretched  out  to  three.  '  Most  assiduous  in  his  attention 
to  business  and  showing  great  ability  in  the  transaction 
of  it ' 1  was  the  impression  he  left  on  the  mind  of  one  of 
the  partners;  though  all  the  evidence  is  not  equally 
favourable,  and  Mr.  Maples's  recollections  may  have 
taken  a  colour  from  Disraeli's  subsequent  fame.  In 
the  formal  sense  his  education  no  doubt  had  suffered, 
and  we  may  be  inclined  to  echo  his  own  regret  that  he 
missed  what  Oxford  could  have  given  him  —  not  merely 
the  scholastic  training,  but  the  other  gifts  of  even  higher 
value  which  she  bestows  upon  the  aspirant  to  a  public 
career.  But  'nature  is  more  powerful  than  education'; 
and  this  maxim,  which  was  given  to  Contarini  Fleming 
for  his  guidance,  was  signally  verified  in  the  case  of 
Benjamin  Disraeli.  Nor  in  those  evenings  of  deep 
1  Froude's  Lord  Beaconsfield,  p.  22. 

VOL.   I D 


34  LAW  AND  TRAVEL  [CHAP,  iv 

study  at  home  was  the  learning  of  the  Universities 
neglected.  He  pursued  his  heroic  attacks  on  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics,  and  presently,  like  Vivian  Grey,  he 
made  the  discovery  'that  there  were  classics  in  other 
languages  besides  Greek  and  Latin,'  and  in  his  father's 
library  'was  introduced  to  that  band  of  noble  spirits, 
the  great  poets  and  legislators  and  philosophers  of  modern 
Europe.'  In  the  eager  pursuit  of  knowledge  he  had  his 
father's  example  to  draw  him  on  and  his  father's  experi- 
ence, no  doubt,  to  guide  him  ;  and  it  was  at  this  time 
that  he  acquired  the  wide,  though  possibly  superficial, 
acquaintance  with  books  which  we  find  even  in  his  earliest 
writings,  and  that  he  laid  the  foundations  of  that  really 
remarkable  and  highly  unconventional  knowledge  of 
history,  English  and  other,  which  he  shows  in  all  his 
works,  and  upon  which  he  justly  prided  himself  through- 
out his  career.  From  his  multifarious  reading  even  law 
books  were  not  wholly  excluded,  or  so  at  least  some 
scraps  in  the  litter  of  early  remains  appear  to  indicate ; 
though  more  often  we  find  the  law  profaned  by  the  use 
of  fragments  of  legal  documents  for  literary  notes  and 
verses. 

In  his  enthusiasm  for  knowledge  Vivian  Grey  narrowly 
escaped  '  being  all  his  life  a  dreaming  scholar,'  and  a 
similar  danger  may  have  seemed  at  this  time  to  threaten 
the  young  Disraeli.  Inherited  instinct  and  his  father's 
example  alike  pointed  in  this  direction.  But  though 
the  thirst  for  knowledge  was  present  in  the  son  as  in 
the  father,  and  the  habit  of  dreaming  was  there  also, 
and  remained  there  till  the  end,  there  was  that  in 
the  son  besides  which  made  it  impossible  that  his  father's 
fate  should  overtake  him.  '  Destiny  bears  us  to  our  lot 
and  destiny  is  our  own  will.' 1 

Neither  Vivian  G-rey  nor  Contarini  Fleming  can  be  used 
without  discrimination  as  an  authority  for  biographical 
details.  In  both,  and  especially  in  Contarini,  which  was 
written  five  years  later  than  the  other,  the  events  of  the 

1  Contarini  Fleming,  Ft.  III.  ch.  11. 


1821-24]  EARLY  AMBITIONS  35 

author's  childhood  and  youth  are  viewed  through  the 
refracting  medium  of  his  subsequent  experience;  and  in 
both  the  story  takes  a  colour  from  his  mood  at  the  time 
of  writing.  When  Disraeli  wrote  Vivian  Grrey  his  ambition 
was  turned  towards  the  world  of  action;  and  when  he 
wrote  Contarini  he  was  dreaming  of  winning  fame  by 
literary  creation.  It  is  the  supreme  interest  of  his  char- 
acter that  he  combined  in  such  high  degree  the  qualities 
that  make  for  greatness  in  either  sphere,  the  brooding 
temperament  and  glowing  imagination  of  the  poet  with 
the  practical  energy,  compelling  will,  and  daring  initiative 
of  the  man  of  action;  and  the  two  novels  reveal  as 
competing  tendencies  in  the  youth  powers  which  were 
harmonised  in  the  complex  character  of  the  man.  Judi- 
ciously interpreted  they  supplement  each  other  and  abound 
in  touches  and  incidents  that  help  us  to  complete  the 
picture  of  these  years  of  adolescence.  But  it  is  to 
Contarini  that  we  must  look  for  the  most  vivid  repre- 
sentation of  the  internal  struggles  by  which  Disraeli's 
youth,  no  less  than  his  hero's,  must  have  been  torn.  In 
Contarini  ambition  awakes  at  a  very  early  age.  While 
still  a  child  he  is  consumed  with  desire  to  be  '  something 
great  and  glorious  and  dazzling,'  and '  entertains  a  deep 
conviction  that  life  must  be  intolerable  unless  he  be  the 
greatest  of  men.'  Yet  he  hovers  perpetually  between 
the  two  ideals  of  the  life  of  glorious  action  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  life  of  contemplation  and  literary  achieve- 
ment on  the  other,  and  hardly  even  at  the  end  of  the  novel 
has  he  succeeded  in  finding  rest.  At  one  moment  he 
'  longs  to  wave  his  inspiring  sword  at  the  head  of  armies 
or  dash  into  the  very  heat  and  blaze  of  eloquent  faction  ; 
at  another  he  feels  the  delight  of  composition  and  grows 
intoxicated  with  his  own  eloquence';  he  'begins  to 
ponder  over  the  music  of  language  ;  he  studies  the  colloca- 
tion of  sweet  words  and  constructs  elaborate  sentences  in 
lonely  walks '  ;  and  then  again,  losing  confidence  in  his 
powers,  he  falls  into  '  the  agony  of  doubt  and  despair 
which  is  the  doom  of  youthful  genius.'  Affected  by  the 


36  LAW  AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP.IV 

spectacle  of  greatness  achieved,  moving  before  him  in 
its  quick  and  proud  reality,'  he  turns  with  disgust  from 
his  '  weak  meditations  of  unexecuted  purposes  and  dreamy 
visions  of  imaginary  grandeur '  and  becomes  a  worldling ; 
or  he  writes  a  romance  or  tragedy  and  throws  it  aside 
'  dissatisfied.  Now  he  plunges  into  action;  again  he  finds 
a  substitute  for  the  excitement  of  action  in  the  excite- 
ment of  thought.'  To-day  'in  reverie  he  is  an  Alberoni, 
a  Ripperda,  a  Richelieu '  ;  to-morrow  he  has  '  resolved 
to  be  a  great  historical  writer,'  and  expound  '  the  nature  of 
man  and  the  origin  of  nations  in  glowing  sentences  of 
oracular  majesty.' 

Through  all  these  phases  or  something  like  them  the 
young  Disraeli  no  doubt  passed.  Over  Vivian  G-rey  and 
Contarini  Fleming  indeed  he  had  one  great  advantage. 
Amid  his  wildest  day-dreams  the  constant  attendance 
at  Frederick's  Place  must  have  been  a  steadying  influence, 
and  have  introduced  an  element  of  discipline  into  his  life 
that  was  lacking  to  both  his  heroes.  When  he  was  most 
a  bookworm  it  helped  to  keep  the  active  instincts  within 
him  alive;  which  was  the  more  fortunate  as  in  his  father's 
house  and  the  society  that  frequented  it  he  can  have 
found  little  to  feed  them  or  to  point  the  way  to  his  subse- 
quent career.  '  Neither  the  fortune  nor  the  family  of 
Mr.  Grey  entitled  him  to  mix  in  any  other  society  than 
that  of  what  is,  in  common  parlance,  termed  the  middling 
classes  ;  but  from  his  distinguished  literary  abilities  he 
had  always  found  himself  an  honoured  guest  among  the 
powerful  and  the  great.'1  If  the  former  part  of  the 
sentence  is  true  of  Benjamin  Disraeli's  father,  no  less  than 
of  Vivian  Grey's,  the  latter  is  not.  Isaac  D'Israeli  was 
a  recluse,  and  while  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
was  sought  by  the  powerful  and  the  great,  it  is  certain 
that  he  never  sought  them.  The  pictures  that  have  been 
drawn  of  the  young  Disraeli's  securing  early  initiation  into 
the  world  of  fashion  and  politics  through  the  guests 
whom  he  met  at  his  father's  table  are  devoid  of  truth. 

1  Vivian  Grey,  Bk.  I.  ch.  8. 


1822]  JOHN  MURRAY'S  DINNERS  37 

His  father's  chosen  companions  were  those  with  whom 
his  attendance  at  the  British  Museum  brought  him  into 
contact  or  his  studies  into  sympathy,  men  like  Francis 
Douce  and  Sharon  Turner,  Crofton  Croker  and  Francis 
Cohen ;  and,  above  all,  John  Murray,  his  publisher. 
Murray,  indeed,  has  a  place  of  some  importance  in  our 
story.  Being  on  terms  of  closest  intimacy  with  the 
D'Israeli  family,  he  had  seen  the  eldest  son  grow  up  from 
childhood,  and  was  among  the  first  to  note  his  unusual 
capacity;  so  much  so  that  before  the  youth  had  com- 
pleted his  eighteenth  year  we  find  the  shrewd  publisher 
seeking  his  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of  a  tragedy  which 
there  was  some  thought  of  producing.  In  recognition  of 
his  precocity  Benjamin  was  early  admitted  to  the  privilege 
of  accompanying  his  father  to  Murray's  dinner  parties, 
where  he  listened  with  rapt  attention  to  the  discourse  of 
Murray's  guests,  usually  literary  celebrities,  small  or 
great.  Of  one  of  these  feasts  of  wit  and  learning  we  have 
a  record  from  his  own  pen  which  helps  us  to  realise  the 
character  of  them  all. 

November  27th,  1822.  Wednesday.  —  Dined  at  Murray's. 
Present  Tom  Moore,  Stuart  Newton,  John  Murray,  Walter 
Hamilton,  my  father  and  self.  Moore  very  entertaining.  .  .  . 

Moore.  —  This  is  excellent  wine,  Murray. 

D'Israeli.  —  You'll  miss  the  French  wines.1 

M.  —  Yes,  the  return  to  port  is  awful. 

D.  —  I  am  not  fond  of  port,  but  really  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
good  port  in  England,  and  you'll  soon  get  used  to  it. 

M.  —  Oh  !  I  have  no  doubt  of  it.  I  used  to  be  very  fond  of 
port — but  French  wines  spoil  one  for  a  while.  The 
transition  is  too  sudden  from  the  wines  of  France  to  the 
port  of  Dover. 

D. — Pray  is  Lord  Byron  much  altered? 

M. — Yes,  his  facing  has  swelled  out  and  he  is  getting  fat; 
his  hair  is  gray  and  his  countenance  has  lost  that 
*  spiritual  expression  '  which  he  so  eminently  had.  His 
teeth  are  getting  bad,  and  when  I  saw  him  he  said  that 
if  ever  he  came  to  England  it  would  be  to  consult  Wayte 
about  them. 

1  Moore  had  recently  returned  from  his  long  residence  abroad. 


38  LAW  AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP.IV 

B.  D.  —  Who  is  since  dead,  and  therefore  he  certainly  won't 

come. 
M.  —  I  certainly  was  very  much  struck  with  an  alteration  for 

the  worse.     Besides  he  dresses  very  extraordinarily. 
D.  —  Slovenly  ? 

M.  —  Oh,  No !  No !  He's  very  dandified,  and  yet  not  an 
English  dandy.  When  I  saw  him  he  was  dressed  in  a 
curious  foreign  cap,  a  frogged  great  coat,  and  had  a  gold 
chain  round  his  neck  and  pushed  into  his  waistcoat 
pocket.  I  asked  him  if  he  wore  a  glass  and  took  it  out, 
when  I  found  fixed  to  it  a  set  of  trinkets.  He  had  also 
another  gold  chain  tight  round  his  neck,  something  like 
a  collar.  He  had  then  a  plan  of  buying  a  tract  of  land 
and  living  in  South  America.  When  I  saw  Scrope 
Davies  and  told  him  that  Byron  was  growing  fat  he 
instantly  said,  'Then  he'll  never  come  to  England.'1 

M.  —  Rogers  is  the  most  wonderful  man  in  conversation  that 
I  know.  If  he  could  write  as  well  as  he  speaks  he  would 
be  matchless,  but  his  faculties  desert  him  as  soon  as  he 
touches  a  pen. 

D.  —  It  is  wonderful  how  many  men  of  talent  have  been  so 
circumstanced. 

M.  —  Yes !  Curran,  I  remember,  began  a  letter  to  a  friend 
thus :  '  It  seems  that  directly  I  take  a  pen  into  my 
hand  it  remembers  and  acknowledges  its  allegiance 
to  its  mother  goose.'  .  .  . 

D.  —  Have  you  read  the  Confessions  of  an  Opium  JEater? 

M.— Yes. 

D.  —  It  is  an  extraordinary  piece  of  writing. 

M.  —  I  thought  it  an  ambitious  style  and  full  of  bad  taste. 

D.  —  You  should  allow  for  the  opium.  You  know  it  is  a 
genuine  work. 

M.  —  Indeed. 

D.  —  Certainly.  The  author's  name  is  De  Quincey.  He  lives 
at  the  lakes.  I  know  a  gentleman  who  has  seen  him. 

Murray .  —  I  have  seen  him  myself.  He  came  to  me  on  busi- 
ness once.  He  was  the  man  whom  the  Lowthers  pro- 
cured to  edit  a  paper  against  Brougham's  party.  He 
read  me  the  prospectus,  and  the  first  thing  he  said  was 

1  See  Vivian  Grey,  Bk.  IV.  ch.  1,  where  the  foregoing  conversation 
about  Byrou  is  reproduced  almost  verbatim. 


1823-24]  YOUTHFUL   DANDYISM  39 

to  tell  the  reader  the  whole  story  of  his  being  hired  by 
Lord  Lonsdale. 

M.  — Ha!  ha!  ha! 

Murray.  —  From  this  you  may  judge  what  kind  of  man  he 
is,  and  I  need  not  tell  you  that  there  never  was  a  being 
so  ignorant  of  the  world's  ways. 

M.  —  I  read  the  confessions  in  the  London  Magazine,  and  I 
had  no  idea  that  it  was  a  genuine  production.  .  .  . 

To  the  young  law  clerk  these  dinners  were  evidently 
something  of  an  event ;  they  gave  him  his  earliest  glimpses 
into  a  greater  world  ;  and  when  in  Vivian  Grrey  he  wanted 
to  reproduce  the  conversation  of  men  of  fashion  of  the 
more  serious  type  it  was  to  his  recollections  of  John 
Murray's  dinner  parties  that  he  turned  for  his  model,  and 
in  part  for  his  material. 

As  the  years  rolled  by,  however,  and  the  boy  outgrew 
his  bookworm  habits,  the  social  side  of  his  nature  must 
have  found  room  for  expansion  elsewhere;  certainly  he 
developed  tastes  and  manners  which  neither  his  father's 
library  nor  Murray's  dining-room  could  have  suggested. 
Vivian  Grey,  we  are  told,  when  at  the  age  of  nineteen  he 
emerged  from  the  seclusion  of  his  study  and  began  to 
mingle  in  society,  was  'an  elegant  lively  lad  with  just 
enough  of  dandyism  to  preserve  him  from  committing 
gaucheries  and  with  the  devil  of  a  tongue ' ;  and  at  a 
similar  stage  of  his  career  the  young  Disraeli,  we  may 
suppose,  was  much  the  same.  The  dandyism  at  all 
events  was  already  visible.  From  the  wife  of  one  of  the 
partners  of  Frederick's  Place  testimony  has  come  down 
that  even  thus  early  Benjamin  Disraeli  dressed  very 
differently  from  other  young  men;  he  used  to  come  to 
her  house  in  'a  black  velvet  suit  with  ruffles,  and  black 
stockings  with  red  clocks  —  which  in  those  days  was 
rather  conspicuous  attire.'  Both  Vivian  Grey  and 
Contarini  Fleming  indicate  that  the  love  of  feminine 
society,  and  the  susceptibility  to  feminine  influence, 
which  were  abiding  features  of  his  character,  made  their 
appearance  early;  though  beyond  his  mother  and  his 


40  LAW  AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP,  iv 

sister,  to  whom  he  was  then  as  always,  devoted,  we  know 
nothing  of  the  women  who  were  at  this  time  of  his  circle. 
Vivian  Grey's  '  devil  of  a  tongue '  made  him  popular 
with  the  ladies  of  his  acquaintance,  and  he  in  his  turn 
discovered  that  4  there  is  no  fascination  so  irresistible 
to  a  boy  as  the  smile  of  a  married  woman.'  The  men 
trembled  at  Contarini's  sarcasms,  but  '  the  women 
repeated  with  wonderment  his  fantastic  raillery.'  Clever, 
spirited,  and  handsome,  and  with  as  much  assurance 
and  as  sharp  a  tongue  as  either  of  his  heroes,  the  young 
Disraeli  no  doubt  had  much  the  same  success. 

Meanwhile,  as  he  shed  the  habits  and  manners  of  the 
scholar,  his  taste  for  the  profession  to  which  his  father 
had  devoted  him  did  not  increase.  There  is  a  story  of 
a  friendly  solicitor  endeavouring  to  quicken  his  flagging 
interest  in  the  law  by  installing  him  for  a  time  in  his  own 
office  ;  but  when  he  found  the  youth  reading  Chaucer 
during  business  hours  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
nature  had  not  intended  him  to  be  a  lawyer,  and  advised 
that  he  should  be  allowed  to  follow  his  own  inclinations 
and  devote  himself  to  literature.1  To  literature  at  all 
events  he  about  this  time  seriously  applied  himself.  The 
first  attempt  of  which  we  have  any  record  is  curiously 
indicative  of  the  trend  of  his  subsequent  genius.  En- 
couraged by  the  kindness  of  John  Murray,  he  submitted 
for  publication  in  May,  1824,  a  short  manuscript  which 
under  the  guise  of  a  tale  was  intended  to  be  a  satire  on 
4  the  present  state  of  society. '  Of  society  outside  Blooms- 
bury  the  youthful  satirist  can  have  known  nothing, 
except  what  he  had  picked  up  at  Murray's  dinner  parties 
or  a  vivid  imagination  could  teach  him ;  and  Murray 
showed  so  little  eagerness  to  publish  that  a  month 
later  the  author  asked  him  to  forget  the  '  indiscretion ' 
and  consign  the  manuscript  to  the  flames.2  A  couple  of 
chapters  which  had  been  mislaid  when  the  manuscript 
was  first  sent  to  Albemarle  Street  have  by  that  accident 

1  Sir  Henry  Layard's  Autobiography,  I.,  p.  47. 

2  Smiles's  Life  of  Murray,  II.,  p.  182. 


1823]  LETTER  TO   MR.   MAPLES  41 

survived,  and  they  seem  to  show  that  the  work  was  a  crude 
anticipation  of  Popanilla,  its  theme  being  the  adven- 
tures of  one  Aylmer  Papillon  in  a  visit  to  Vraibleusia. 
It  was  characteristic  of  Disraeli  that  in  spite  of  disappoint- 
ment at  the  first  the  project,  though  allowed  to  sleep,  should 
not  have  been  abandoned.  Nearly  all  his  successes  in  life 
were  founded  on  previous  failures. 

To  Mr.  T.  F.  Maples. 

WINDSOR, 

Aug.  2,  1823. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

A  letter  which  begins  with  congratulations  is  generally  a 
pleasant  thing,  and  I  therefore  feel  very  grateful  for  the 
opportunity  of  thus  happily  commencing  my  epistle  to  the 
young  stranger  who 

porrigens  teneras  manus 
matris  e  gremio  suae 
Dulce  rideat  ad  patrem 
semihiante  labello.1 

But  to  leave  Catullus  and  congratulations  for  a  more  matter 
of  fac+  subject.  As  no  particular  time  was  settled  for  my 
return,  and  as  you  expressed  a  wish  that  I  would  communicate 
with  you  upon  it,  I  am  under  the  necessity  of  intruding  upon 
you,  surrounded  of  course  by  crowds  of  hurrying  and  eager 
friends  who  hail  this  new  accession  to  the  house  of  Montague, 
to  ask  the  very  uninteresting  and  business-like  question  of, 
when  would  you  wish  me  to  return  ? 

If  you  can  find  time  to  write  me  half  a  line  upon  this  subject 
I  shall  feel  much  obliged. 

Present  my  best  compliments  to  Mrs.  Maples. 
With  the  wish  that  every  day  of  your  daughter's  life  may 
be  as  sunny  as  the  present  and  that  she  may  never  know  the 
miseries  of  a  wet  summer, 

I  remain,  my  dear  Sir, 

Yours  sincerely, 

B.  DlSRAELI.2 

When  that  letter  was  written  the  Disraeli  family  were 
spending  a  summer  holiday  on  the  Thames.  In  their 

1  Catullus,  Carm.  LXL,  210. 

2  It  seems  to  have  been  about  the  beginning  of    this    year,    when 
he  was  eighteen,  that  Benjamin  dropped  the  apostrophe  in  his  name. 
His    brothers    and  sister  followed  his    example,   though    their    father 
retained  the  old  spelling  to  the  end. 


42  LAW  AND  TRAVEL  [CHAP.IV 

annual  excursions  they  rarely  went  far  afield,  but  in 
1824,  Benjamin,  whose  travels  had  hitherto  been  confined 
probably  within  a  hundred  miles  of  London,  had  a 
notable  extension  of  his  experience.  His  health  was 
already  becoming  delicate  and  his  father  was  also  ailing  ; 
so  father  and  son  set  forth  for  a  six  weeks'  tour  on  the 
Continent,  accompanied  by  a  young  family  friend  called 
Meredith,  who  had  just  taken  his  degree  at  Oxford,  and 
whom  we  shall  meet  again  hereafter.  Leaving  London 
towards  the  end  of  July,  the  travellers  went  by  steamer 
to  Ostend,  posted  through  Belgium  to  Cologne,  and 
ascended  the  Rhine  valley  as  far  as  Mannheim  and 
Heidelberg.  We  have  Benjamin's  impressions  of  the 
tour  partly  in  an  unfinished  diary  and  partly  in  volumi- 
nous letters  to  his  sister,  which  show  in  the  writer,  in 
addition  to  some  merely  boyish  pertness  and  vivacity, 
a  keen  eye  alike  for  the  picturesque  and  the  ridiculous  ; 
a  good  deal  of  descriptive  power  ;  an  interest  in  the  fine 
arts  and  a  knowledge  of  them,  both  surprising  in  one 
so  young  ;  and  a  no  less  surprising  interest  in  gastronomy, 
regarded  also  as  an  art  and  not  merely  as  ministering  to  a 
healthy  boy's  appetite. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

BRUGES, 

Thursday,  July  29,  1824. 
MY  DEAR  SA, 

I  add  a  few  lines  to  /ny  father's  letter  not  only  out  of  my 
great  affection  for  you,  but  also  that  you  may  not  miscon- 
ceive the  meaning  of  his  dubious  paragraph  respecting  our 
triumph.  The  truth  is  that  we  had  a  very  still  breeze,  and  almost 
every  individual  was  taken  down  stairs  save  ourselves,  who 
bore  it  out  in  the  most  manly  and  magnificent  manner,  not 
even  inclining  to  indisposition.  We  came  in  with  a  very  fresh 
sea;  the  night  was  most  magnificent  —  indeed,  I  never 
witnessed  a  finer  night.  The  Governor  was  most  frisky  on 
his  landing,  and  on  the  strength  of  mulled  claret,  &c.,  was 
quite  the  lion  of  Ostend.  This  latter  place  we  found  suffi- 
ciently disgusting,  uninteresting  for  anything  with  the 
exception  of  its  fortifications  and  harbour.  We  left  it  at  8 
o'clock  same  morning  as  we  arrived,  and  proceeded  to  Bruges 
in  diligence  thro'  a  flat  but  richly  wooded  country  full  of 


1824]  BRUGES  43 

chdteaux,  long  avenues,  and  paysannes  with  wooden  shoes 
and  rich  lace  caps.  Bruges  is  the  city  of  cities.  Nothing 
but  Churches  and  grand  maisons  —  not  a  hovel  in  it.  The 
streets  the  handsomest  and  widest  and  the  architecture  the 
most  varied  and  picturesque  imaginable.  I  never  knew  the 
Governor  in  such  fine  racy  spirits.  I  see  he  has  hinted  at 
the  Hamiltons  adventure.  Sir  John  is  certainly  rather  a 
bore,  but 

'  upon  my  life 

he  has  two  daughters  and  a  ladye  wife ; ' 

the  first  are  regular  prime  girls,  both  fine  women,  the  youngest 
devilish  pretty,  regularly  unaffected,  full  of  sketching,  and 
void  of  sentimentality.  He  has  introduced  us  with  the 
greatest  sangfroid,  and  Meredith  and  myself  intend  to  run 
away  with  them.  We  have  put  up  at  the  same  inn  at  Bruges,  a 
capital  one  by  the  bye.  .  .  .  Meredith  and  myself  talk  French 
with  a  mixture  of  sublimity  and  sangfroid  perfectly  inimitable. 
We  are  off  to  Gand  to-morrow  by  canal  after  having  passed 
a  long  and  luscious  day  at  Bruges.  Give  my  best  love  to 
ma  m&re  and  the  dear  young  slave  drivers. 

Yours, 

B.  DISRAELI. 


ANTWERP, 

Monday,  Aug.  2. 

MY  DEAK  SA, 

We  have  been  in  Antwerp  about  two  hours  and  a  half,  and 
the  post  goes  off  to-morrow  morning.  My  father,  as  usual 
emulous  of  saving  postage,  positively  forbids  our  writing 
separate  letters,  and  he  has  been,  of  course,  the  whole  two 
hours  and  a  half  writing  his  half  page.  I  myself  am  extremely 
tired,  and  have  not  room,  even  if  I  had  time,  enough  to  write 
you  a  letter  as  long  as  I  could  desire,  but  I  trust  that  by  next 
post  my  father  will  sicken  of  his  Sevigne  fit,  and  resign  the 
sheet  in  my  favour.  We  left  Bruges  excessively  delighted 
on  Friday  morning  in  the  barque.  The  vessel  was  very  full. 
The  Hamiltons,  &c.  There  was  an  Irishman  among  the 
passengers  who  would  have  made  an  inimitable  hero  for 
Matthews.  It  was  his  debut  on  the  Continent,  and,  with  a  most 
plentiful  supply  of  ignorance  and  an  utter  want  of  taste, 
he  was  enthusiastically  fond  of  paintings;  for  many  years 
running  he  had  come  up  from  Dublin  on  purpose  to  see  the 
exhibition,  and  after  a  discourse  with  him  on  Eubens,  the 
Flemish  School,  &c.,  on  all  of  which  subjects  he  exhibited 
the  most  splendid  enthusiasm,  he  coolly  remarked  that  he 
should  have  enjoyed  his  journey  much  more  had  he  not  missed 


44  LAW   AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP,  iv 

the  Water-color  Exhibition.  I  met  him  two  or  three  times 
afterwards  in  different  places,  and  his  salutations  were  ex- 
ceedingly rich  ;  it  was  always  "  How  do  you  do,  Sir ;  wonder- 
ful city  this,  Sir,  wonderful !  Pray  have  you  seen  the  cruci- 
fixion by  Vandyke,  wonderful  picture,  Sir,  wonderful,  Sir.' 
We  arrived  at  Ghent  after  a  pleasant  passage  of  six  hours  on 
Friday  at  3.  I  was  agreeably  surprised  by  the  place,  which 
I  had  imagined  would  have  been  Bruges  on  a  larger  scale. 
Its  character,  however,  is  perfectly  different ;  there  seems 
a  great  deal  of  business  going  on,  or  at  least  the  numerous 
canals  and  the  river  Scheldt,  by  which  it  is  intersected, 
and  which  are  tolerably  well  tilled  with  shipping,  give  it 
that  appearance.  We  of  course  visited  Mr.  Schamp's  collec- 
tion, the  University,  Cathedral,  &c.,  and  of  course  we  always 
thought  each  thing  more  wonderful  than  another,  were 
exceedingly  delighted,  and  tired  ourselves  to  death.  At  St. 
Nicholas  we  took  it  into  our  heads  to  dine,  perfectly 
extemporaneous.  We  ordered  of  course  something  cold, 
not  to  be  detained.  The  hostess,  however,  seemed  pecul- 
iarly desirous  to  give  us  a  specimen  of  her  cookery,  and 
there  was  a  mysterious  delay.  Enter  the  waiter.  A 
fricandeau,  the  finest  I  ever  tasted,  perfectly  admirable, 
a  small  and  very  delicate  roast  joint,  veal  chops  dressed  with 
a  rich  sauce  piquant,  capital  roast  pigeons,  a  large  dish  of 
peas  most  wonderfully  fine,  cheese,  dessert,  a  salad  pre- 
eminent even  among  the  salads  of  Flanders  which  are  unique 
for  their  delicate  crispness  and  silvery  whiteness,  bread  and 
beer  ad  lib.  served  up  in  the  neatest  and  purest  manner 
imaginable,  silver  forks,  &c. ;  cost  only  6  francs,  forming 
one  of  the  finest  specimens  of  exquisite  and  economic  cookery 
I  ever  witnessed.  We  have  had  a  good  deal  of  veal  stewed 
with  sorrel,  and  not  bad.  The  paper  in  this  country  is  bad, 
the  ink  infamous,  and  the  pens  wusser.  Love  to  Mere  and  all. 

Your  affectionate   Brother, 

B.  DISRAELI. 

Sometimes  the   diary  is  an  interesting   supplement  to 
the  letters. 

BRUGES, 

Thursday. 

Magnificent  city,  perpetual  palaces,  not  an  ordinary  house. 
The  proportions  of  the  town  perfect.  The  Cathedral  a 
very  ancient  building.  The  tower  a  rude  shapeless  pile,  rises 
like  a  great  leviathan.  The  bricks  of  which  it  is  built  are  of 
a  most  diminutive  size.  This  apparently  adds  to  its  height. 
The  city  is  three  times  too  extensive  for  its 
inhabitants,  and  you  may  lounge  down  magnificent  parades 


1824]  ANTWERP  AND   BRUSSELS  45 

bounded  on  both  sides  by  palaces  and  churches,  without 
being  disturbed  by  a  single  sound  or  meeting  a  single 
individual.  In  its  decay,  its  splendour,  its  antiquity  and 
its  silence,  it  very  much  resembles  our  Winchester. 

GHENT, 
Sunday. 

Cathedral  High  Mass.  Clouds  of  incense  and  one  of 
Mozart's  sublimest  masses  by  an  orchestra  before  which  San 
Carlo  might  grow  pale.  The  effect  inconceivably  grand. 
The  host  raised,  and  I  flung  myself  on  the  ground. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

BRUSSELS, 

Friday,  Aug.  6. 

MY  DEAR  SA, 

The  sermones  gubernatorii  are  this  time  rather  diminished. 
We  have  heard  that  a  post  has  arrived  from  England  this 
evening;  there  is  therefore  some  little  chance  of  a  letter; 
if  however  we  do  not  receive  one  we  shall  be  off  on  Saturday 
morning.  We  were  more  delighted  with  Antwerp  than  with 
any  place  we  have  yet  been  at.  We  put  up  at  the  Grand 
Laboureur,  unfortunately  no  table  d'hote,  but  capital  private 
feeds;  our  living  for  the  last  week  has  been  the  most 
luxurious  possible,  and  my  mother  must  really  reform  her 
table  before  our  return.  I  have  kept  a  journal  of  dinners 
for  myself  and  of  doings  in  general  for  my  father,  so  I  shall 
leave  the  account  of  the  churches,  cathedrals,  and  cafes 
till  we  come  home.  We  have  had  a  perfect  debauch  of 
Rubens,  and  Meredith  and  myself  have  destroyed  the  reputa- 
tion of  half  the  cathedrals  in  Flanders  by  our  mysterious 
hints  of  the  spuriousness  of  their  Sir  Pauls. 

On  Tuesday  morning  we  set  off  for  Brussels.  We  dined 
at  Mechlin,  and  stayed  between  four  and  five  hours  there; 
dinner  good  and  Cathedral  magnificent,  oysters  as  small  as 
shrimps,  but  delicately  sweet;  hunted  up  an  old  book- 
seller. The  entrance  to  Brussels  is  very  striking.  The  part 
in  which  we  reside,  the  new  town,  is  a  perpetual  Waterloo 
Place,  a  regular  succession  of  grand  places  and  Rue  Royales 
in  a  magnificent  style  of  architecture. 

The  governor  is  particularly  well.  He  has  mounted  a 
black  stock,  and  this,  added  to  his  former  rather  military 
appearance,  very  materially  aided  a  very  pleasant  mistake 
which  occurred  a  short  time  ago.  Our  affectionately  slang 
appellation  of  governor  aided  by  the  aforesaid  military 
appearance  has  caused  him  to  be  lionised  over  a  maison  de 
force  with  regular  major-general  honors. 


46  LAW  AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP,  rv 

We  visited  the  Comedie  last  night;  but  the  performances 
were  meagre  and  the  house  ill  attended.  The  King  of  Holland 
pays  the  actors,  and,  of  course,  there  is  no  theatrical  spirit 
in  Bruxelles.  We  pass  the  evenings  very  agreeably  in  cafes, 
where  Meredith  and  myself  play  dominoes  in  a  most  magnifi- 
cent manner  and  the  governor  invents  or  discovers  new  ices, 
lectures  on  sorbettes  and  liqueurs,  and  reads  the  Flanders 
papers,  which  are  a  copy  a  week  old  of  the  Parisian  copies 
of  the  English.  We  then  rush  home  to  Selzer  water  and 
Moselle,  sugar  and  lemon,  an  invention  of  a  waiter  and  my 
father,  and  which,  to  use  our  favorite  national  phrase,  if  it  is 
equalled  by  any  cup  in  Europe,  is  certainly  not  excelled.  .  .  . 

Brussels  is  full  of  English.  The  Belle  Vue  crowded.  An 
Irish  officer,  rather  grand,  invited  me  to  a  picnic  party  at 
Waterloo;  also  told  me  he  thought  an  Irish  gentleman  was  the 
completest  gentleman  in  the  world  when  he  chose,  fancying  his 
brogue  did  not  detect  him.  We  visit  the  field  of  Waterloo 
not  so  much  for  the  scenery,  but,  as  Mrs.  Young  says,  for  the 
idea. 

Yours, 

B.  DISRAELI. 

Some  notes  on  pictures  and  gastronomy  may  be  added 
from  the  diary. 

ANTWERP, 

Monday. 

It  is  impossible  without  visiting  Antwerp  to  have  any  idea 
of  the  character  and  genius  of  Rubens.  It  is  ridiculous  to 
hear  the  sage  critiques  on  his  particular  style  and  manner. 
No  artist  seems  to  have  painted  so  differently.  His  style 
in  his  large  pictures  is  sometimes  sketchy  and  rapid,  while 
in  the  Museum  are  many  pictures  finished  with  almost  a 
miniature  exactness. 

Without  a  pause,  the  diarist  goes  on  to  a  subject  that 
interested  him  as  much  as  pictures. 

The  dinner  was  good.  The  Grand  Laboureur  is,  as  the 
Clerk  of  the  Police  well  termed  it,  un  hotel  pour  les  riches. 
The  vol  au  vent  of  pigeons  was  admirable.  The  peas  were 
singularly  fine.  The  idiots,  imagining  they  could  please 
our  English  taste, dressed  them  au  naturell  Peste! 

Tuesday. 

Rose  at  5,  —  was  at  the  Museum  at  6.  The  Dt.piite  Directeur 
a  civil  fellow.  Copied  some  drolls  from  an  ancient  picture  of 
Hans  of  Malines.  In  the  midst  of  my  sketching,  the  D.D. 
mysteriously  beckoned  me  away  and  conducted  me  to  a  large 


1824]  BRUSSELS  TO  COLOGNE  47 

and  curtained  picture  which  when  unveiled  displayed  to  my 
awe-struck  vision  the  Christ  between  the  Thieves,  by  Rubens. 
The  picture  had  been  lately  undergoing  an  operation  and  strict 
orders  had  been  given  that  it  was  to  be  shown  to  no  one.  The 
D.,  however,  with  whom  we  had  formed  a  kind  of  mon  ami 
acquaintance,  took  advantage  of  the  early  morn  to  display  to 
us  the  most  magnificent  painting  in  the  world.  This  is  an 
additional  argument  in  favour  of  early  rising. 

BRUSSELS, 
Wednesday. 

Table  d'hote  at  Belle  Vue  — between  30  and  40  persons. 
Sufficiently  amusing.  Dinner  excellent  —  frogs  —  pat&  de 
grenouilles  —  magnificent !  Sublime ! 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

COLOGNE, 

Saturday,  Aug.  14. 
DEAR  SA, 

We  are  in  a  city  in  which  there  are  so  many  churches  to 
lionize  that  I  am  afraid  we  shall  never  get  out  of  it.  We 
arrived  at  Cologne  last  night.  I  wrote  to  you  last  from 
Brussels.  .  .  .  On  Saturday  we  left  Brussels  for  Waterloo, 
lionised  over  the  field  of  battle  and  the  adjoining  country  by 
old  Shorter  himself,  a  jolly  antique.  He  harangued  in  a 
mixture  of  Dutch,  Flemish,  French,  and  English  —  very  rich  — 
forming  a  kind  of  Belle  Alliance  lingo,  most  likely  in  compli- 
ment to  the  place.  We  dined  at  Genappe  most  admirably; 
by  the  bye,  we  hired  a  carriage  at  Brussels.  It  is  a  complete 
travelling  carriage  left  behind  by  a  Hamburg  gentleman  at 
the  Belle  Vue,  perhaps  for  his  bill.  We  got  to  Namur  by 
11  o'clock  at  night.  At  Genappe  the  country  rises  and  the 
road  for  about  7  leagues  is  through  a  bold  but  highly  cultivated 
country.  We  left  Namur,  where  there  is  little  to  see,  on 
Sunday  afternoon.  Our  road  lay  through  the  valley  of  the 
Meuse,  and  after  proceeding  for  about  20  miles  we  arrived  at 
Huy,  a  small  village  most  romantically  situated  amidst  lofty 
hills  on  the  banks  of  the  Meuse.  The  journey  to  Huy  is  a 
succession  of  scenery  which  I  think  the  Rhine  can  scarcely 
equal.  On  Monday  morning  we  continued  our  journey  for 
about  30  miles,  as  far  as  Liege,  still  through  the  valley.  The 
scenery  if  possible  even  more  picturesque  than  before  and  the 
valley  considerably  wider.  .  .  . 

At  seven  in  the  morning  on  Tuesday  we  set  off  for  Spa. 
We  passed  over  a  mountainous  country,  and  for  miles 
continued  to  ascend.  The  road  to  Spa  is  a  perfect 
debauch  of  gorgeous  scenery.  We  arrived  at  the  far- 
famed  watering  place;  pen  and  ink,  and  particularly 


48  LAW   AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP.IV 

the  miserable  material  with  which  I  am  scratching,  can  give 
you  no  idea  of  our  rich  adventures.  We  rode  on  the  Spa 
ponies  to  the  distant  springs.  They  are  handsome  little 
galloways ;  the  governor  was  particularly  equestrian.  I  have 
become  a  most  exquisite  billiard  player ;  we  shewed  off  to  great 
advantage  at  the  Wells  and  Aix,  to  which  place  we  were  off  on 
Wednesday.  We  were  asleep  when  we  entered  the  Prussian 
frontier,  and  the  governor  mistook  the  officer  for  an  inn- 
keeper and  kindly  informed  him  that  he  had  taken  refresh- 
ment at  Limburg.  The  rest  of  this  scene,  which  was  exquisite, 
when  we  meet.  Aix  is  close  and  inelegant,  the  pictures  we 
saw  magnifique.  We  slept  on  Thursday  at  Juliers,  and  had 
rich  adventures  at  a  country  inn,  and  arrived  at  the  Rhine 
last  night.  It  is  flowing  in  sight  of  our  windows.  Excuse 
false  construction  and  vicious  grammar,  as  I  have  lost  my 
English.  Everything  has  gone  right  except  hearing  from 
you.  I  suppose  you  missed  the  English  post.  We  did  not 
sufficiently  calculate.  As  for  our  own  journey,  if  we  find  a 
letter  at  Mayence,  saying  dear  Mother  is  well,  we  may  perhaps 
favor  you  by  not  returning  at  all,  as  really  your  manners 
are  so  barbarous  and  your  dishes  so  detestable  that,  &c. 
Give  my  love  to  all.  I  trust  my  Mother  and  yourself  are 
well.  I  meant  to  have  written  to  Ralph,  but  my  father 
approves  of  concentrated  postage.  How  is  Jem  ? 

Yours  ever, 

B.   DISRAELI. 

On  the  road  between  Spa  and  Aix  he  notes  in  the 
diary  :  — '  The  Belgians  seem  extremely  hostile  against 
the  Dutch.  It  may  be  questioned  whether,  in  case  of  a 
war,  they  might  not  rebel  against  the  present  authorities  ' 
—  probably  his  first  political  observation  of  which  there 
is  record.  One  of  the  pictures  at  Aix  which  he  found  so 
'  magnifique  '  leads  to  a  strange  rhapsody  :  — 

Head  of  Christ  by  Morales,  exactly  as  in  the  description 
in  the  pseudo  letter  of  the  Roman  Proconsul.  Morales  well 
entitled  to  his  surname  of  Divino.  The  first  painters  depicted 
the  Saviour  with  the  common  national  countenance,  always 
undignified  and  sometimes  vulgar.  The  great  masters,  aware 
of  the  impropriety,  were  not  bold  enough  to  alter  what  they 
attempted  to  improve,  and  in  their  attenuated  and  unin- 
teresting figures  they  have  only  spiritualized  a  sad  humanity. 
In  the  present  picture,  the  auburn  locks  seem  only  prevented 
from  growing  over  the  countenance  by  the  moiety  of  the  star 


• 


Jsie 


J834. 


1824]  THE   RHINE  49 

which  forms  the  glory:  everything  which  can  even  be  con- 
ceived as  necessary  to  the  formation  of  a  face  of  perfect 
beauty,  but  nothing  earthly  in  the  appearance.  You  could 
not  mistake  the  head  for  an  Apollo  or  an  Adonis.  The  eyes, 
beaming  with  human  beauty,  are  nevertheless  bright  with  the 
effulgence  of  celestial  light,  and  fixed  upon  no  particular  ob- 
ject. They  seem  looking  on  the  world.  The  nose  is  exqui- 
sitely formed,  and  the  flesh  tints  seem  immortal. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 


MAINZ, 
Aug.  19. 


MY  DEAR  SA, 

We  arrived  at  Mainz  yesterday  morning,  and  immediately 
rushed  to  the  post-office,  though  we  were  all  convinced  of 
the  utter  impossibility  of  receiving  a  letter.  To  our  great 
joy  one  was  immediately  handed  us.  It  was  very  clever  in 
you  writing  to  M.  The  non-receipt  of  a  letter  was  the  only 
circumstance  which  threw  a  cloud  over  our  enjoyment,  and  to 
receive  it  so  unexpectedly  was  quite  delightful.  My  father 
recovered  his  spirits  in  an  instant.  .  .  .  Since  I  last  wrote 
from  Cologne  our  adventures  have  been  grand.  So  much 
was  to  be  seen  at  Cologne  that  we  hired  a  fiacre,  as  we 
thought,  from  our  host,  determined  to  ride  all  over  the  city. 
To  our  great  surprise  a  most  elegant  landaulet  with  the  coach- 
men in  military  livery  stopped  at  our  gate.  This,  we  were 
informed,  was  the  fiacre,  and  also  nearly  the  only  carriage 
in  Cologne.  We  were  almost  stopped  in  our  progress  by 
the  stares  of  the  multitude,  who  imagined  we  were  Arch- 
dukes at  least.  We  have  always  put  up  at  the  crack  hotels, 
which  we  find  the  most  reasonable.  We  travel,  as  I  wrote 
to  you,  in  a  most  elegant  equipage,  and  live  perfectly  en 
prince.  The  governor  allows  us  to  debauch  to  the  utmost, 
and  Hochheimer,  Johannisberg,  Rudesheimer,  Assmanns- 
hausen,  and  a  thousand  other  varieties  are  unsealed  and 
floored  with  equal  rapidity. 

On  Sunday  we  left  Cologne  early,  dined  at  Bonn  — 
where  we  stayed  some  short  time — passed  Drachenfels  and 
the  seven  mountains,  reached  Coblenz  early  next  morning, 
left  it  in  the  afternoon,  visited  Ehrenbreitstein  —  for  which 
our  landlord  got  us  a  ticket  —  and  left  for  the  present 
the  Rhine  to  proceed  on  our  tour  to  the  Baths  of  the 
Taunus  Mountains.  We  entered  the  principality  of  Nas- 
sau, and  arrived  at  Ems  at  five  o'clock.  The  scenery 
is  of  a  nature  baffling  all  description,  the  chief  feature 
richly  wooded  mountains.  The  baths  of  Ems  are  now  among 
the  most  fashionable  of  the  continent.  Spa  and  those 

VOL.    I E 


50  LAW   AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP.IV 

kind  of  place  are  now  out  of  date,  or  visited  merely  by  English. 
The  establishment  consists  of  a  mansion  which  covers  nearly 
an  acre  of  ground  and  which  was  formerly  a  palace  of  Nassau. 
It  contains  upwards  of  230  rooms,  besides  80  baths,  which 
are  similar  to  those  at  Aix.  The  lodgings  are  a  concern  of 
the  Prince,  and  on  each  door  the  price  of  the  bed,  &c.,  is 
affixed.  Over  this  department  a  maitre  d'hdtel  appointed 
by  the  Prince  presides.  The  rest  of  the  establishment  is 
perfectly  separate,  and  is  constructed  by  a  restaurateur  at 
his  own  risk.  There  is  a  Saloon  of  an  immense  length  and 
magnificently  furnished,  at  which  there  is  a  table  d'hdte  every 
day  at  1,  all  other  meals  and  refreshments  independent  in 
different  parts  of  the  Saloon.  Opposite  to  the  mansion  are 
beautiful  gardens  running  by  the  side  of  the  river  Lahn. 

Such  is  a  slight  sketch  of  Ems,  a  most  singular,  indeed,  an 
unique  spot.  A  watering  place  without  shops  and  without 
houses ;  the  very  Castle  of  Indolence.  Above  all,  its  situation 
is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  magical  in  the  world,  this  in 
a  small  valley  surrounded  by  ranges  of  lofty  but  wooded 
mountains.  The  river  Lahn  winds  through  them,  and  walks 
and  gardens  are  on  its  banks.  Further  on  the  heights  and 
woods  of  Nassau,  studded  with  old  grey  ruins,  and  without 
a  sign  of  population.  The  visitors  are  perfectly  in  unison 
with  the  genius  loci.  Lounging  and  lackadaisical,  they 
bask  on  sunny  banks  or  doze  in  acacia  arbors.  Some  creep 
to  the  woods  of  Nassau,  others  are  rowed  down  the  river, 
music  perpetual.  The  ladies  patronise  superb  donkeys. 
There  seems  an  utter  void  of  all  thought  and  energy,  and 
positively  in  this  place  even  the  billiard  room  and  the  gambling 
table  are  deserted.  Above  all,  no  English.  The  Hamiltons, 
whom  we  met  again,  the  only  ones.  After  this  account  you  will 
perhaps  rejoice  to  hear  that  we  left  this  fatal  and  delicious 
paradise  next  day  at  12,  a  glorious  morning,  passed  to  and 
through  Nassau,  the  country,  if  possible,  increasing  in  loveli- 
ness. .  .  .  We  are  all  exceedingly  well.  Have  made 
many  acquaintances,  chiefly  among  the  military,  the  governor 
being  perpetually  mistaken  for  a  g6n6ral  anglais.  His  black 
stock  is  grand,  and  he  has  long  left  off  powder.  .  .  . 
Your  affectionate  Brother, 

B.  DISRAELI. 

HEIDELBERG, 

Monday,  Aug.  23. 

MY  DEAR  SA, 

We  arrived  at  Heidelberg,  or,  as  my  father  terms  it,  Heligo- 
land, this  morning  and  received  your  letter.  On  Thursday 
the  19th  we  left  Mainz,  crossed  again  the  Ehine,  re-entered 


1824]  FRANKFORT   TO   HEIDELBERG  51 

Nassau,  and  arrived  at  Frankfort  early.  We  remained  in 
this  city  until  Sunday  morning,  and  were  very  much  amused. 
F.  is  a  very  populous,  busy,  and  dashing  city.  The  Opera 
is  one  of  the  best  in  Germany.  We  went  on  Thursday  night, 
Cherubini's  Medea.  The  house  crammed  full.  The  boxes 
private,  as  in  London,  save  two  in  the  centre  for  strangers. 
We  were  much  amused.  We  lounged  a  great  deal  at  Frank- 
fort. Our  banker  was  extremely  civil,  and  gave  us  a  ticket 
for  the  Casino,  an  institution  similar  to  our  crack  London 
clubs,  and  not  inferior  to  them  in  style  or  splendour.  Here 
we  read  all  the  English  newspapers  and  billiardised.  Return- 
ing home  we  discovered  at  a  confiseur's  something  superb 
beyond  conception ;  we  committed  an  excess,  and  have  talked 
of  the  ambrosia  ever  since.  My  father  has  bought  some 
tine  prints  at  F.  —  Albrecht  Diirers,  Max  Antonios,  and 
many  Rembrandts,  very  magnificent  impressions  and  very 
reasonable.  On  Saturday  we  visited  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Bethmann;  in  it  Dannecker's  grand  Ariadne  on  the  Lion, 
which  you  remember  described  in  Dodd.  In  the  evening 
we  rushed  to  the  Opera,  the  Zauberflote.  .  .  . 

On  Sunday,  after  visiting  the  Museum,  we  left  Frankfort  for 
Darmstadt,  a  lounging  little  city  full  of  new  and  architectural 
streets.  The  Opera  is  celebrated  throughout  Europe,  and  justly 
so.  We  attended  it  in  the  evening —  OteUo ;  the  scenery  is  the 
most  exquisite  I  ever  met  with,  the  discipline  of  the  orchestra 
admirable.  The  Grand  Duke  an  immense  amateur.  The 
Royal  Box  is  a  large  pavilion  of  velvet  and  gold  in  the  midst 
of  the  Theatre.  The  Duke  himself,  in  grand  military  uniform, 
gave  the  word  for  the  commencement  of  the  Overture,  stand- 
ing up  all  the  time,  beating  time  with  one  hand  and  watching 
the  orchestra  through  an  immense  glass  with  the  other. 

We  left  Darmstadt  this  morning,  a  very  fine  day,  travelled 
through  a  beautiful  country  at  the  foot  of  the  Bergstrasse  moun- 
tains, reached  Heidelberg,  which  is  beautifully  situated  on  the 
Neckar,  surrounded  and  partly  built  on  lofty  mountains. 
We  called  and  delivered  our  letters  to  Mrs.  Fobin,  a  cleverish, 
pleasant  woman.  She  was  very  civil,  pressed  us  very  much 
to  stay  at  Heidelberg,  asked  us  to  meet  Lady  Davy  and  Lord 
Dudley,  who  are  both  at  H.,  which  we  declined,  as  we  set  off 
to-morrow.  .  .  .  We  rise  very  early,  and  travel  chiefly  in  the 
early  morning.  We  shall  be  back,  I  dare  say,  in  a  fortnight, 
as  there  are  no  great  cities  to  visit  on  our  return.  We  have 
been  only  a  month  coming  to  Heidelberg,  and  have  done  any- 
thing but  hurry,  spending  in  Brussels  and  Frankfort  alone 
upwards  of  a  week.  .  .  .  Remember  me  to  all,  my  best  love  to 
my  mother.  ...  I  expect  no  more  letters  from  you,  but  shall 


52  LAW   AND   TRAVEL  [CHAP,  iv 

enquire  at  Mannheim  and  Mainz  and  Coblenz  before  our 
excursion  into  Luxembourg.  We  are  now  in  the  Duchy  of 
Baden;  have  been  much  disappointed  in  not  seeing  the 
Freischiitz.  It  would  have  been  a  great  treat  to  have  seen 
it  at  Darmstadt. 

Your  affectionate  Brother, 

B.  DISRAELI. 

COBLKNZ, 

Sunday,  Aug.  29. 

MY  DEAR  SA, 

I  wrote  to  you  last  from  Heidelberg,  which  pretty  place 
we  left  on  Wednesday  last.  We  had  the  misfortune  of  having 
very  rainy  weather  there,  but  the  new  moon  has  brought  us 
at  last  the  most  beautiful  weather  that  I  ever  remember. 
We  reached  Mannheim,  a  beautiful  city  —  a  f §te  on  the  birth- 
day of  the  G.  Duke  of  Baden ;  the  Opera,  very  elegant  house 
and  very  fully  attended ;  Don  Giovanni  —  very  bad.  From 
Mannheim  we  travelled  through  Worms  and  arrived  again 
at  Mayence  on  Friday. 

Yesterday  having  made  necessary  arrangements  for 
the  conveyance  of  our  carriage,  we  commenced  our 
voyage  down  the  Rhine.  So  much  has  been  read  and 
written  about  this  descent  that  I  will  not  bore  you  with 
descriptions  of  a  country  which  you  know  almost  as  well 
as  myself.  I  can  only  say  that  the  most  glowing  descrip- 
tions do  but  imperfect  justice  to  the  magnificent  scenery. 
It  answered  my  highest  expectations,  which,  after  passing 
over  the  Bergstrasse  and  the  Taunus,  is  saying  a  great  deal. 
We  set  off  at  6  o'clock,  stopped  at  Bingen  two  hours  for  dinner, 
but  the  time  not  suiting  us  we  had  supplied  ourselves  with 
prog.  We  therefore  took  a  boat  during  these  two  hours 
and  made  an  excursion  to  the  ruined  castle  of  Ehrenfels, 
near  Bingen  and  opposite  the  famous  tower  of  Archbishop 
Hatto.  .  .  . 

We  landed  in  the  evening  again  at  Coblenz  after 
passing  through  60  miles  of  the  most  beautiful  part  of 
the  river.  Here  we  are  digesting  an  excursion  into  Luxem- 
bourg. Our  host  at  Coblenz  is  a  most  excellent  fellow.  My 
love  to  my  mother  and  all.  The  weather  continues  most 
beautiful.  Tell  Ralph  we  had  two  military  bands  alter- 
nately playing  while  we  dined  at  Mannheim.  Jem  I  hope 
is  prospering. 

Our  host  at  Coblenz  has  discovered  since  our  last  visit 
that  the  governor  is  a  great  author  and  has  coolly  informed 
him  this  morning  he  shall  be  obliged  to  him  for  his  works. 
Our  dinners,  if  possible,  improve.  Game  is  rushing  in  in 
all  directions.  Partridges  abound.  The  roebuck  is  superb 


1824] 


THE   LAW   ABANDONED 


53 


beyond  imagination.     At  Mannheim  we  had  sour  craut,  but 
this  is  not  the  season  for  it. 


Yours  ever, 


B.  DISRAELI. 


Here  Disraeli's  own  record  of  his  journey  comes  to  an 
end.  From  Coblenz  the  travellers  made  their  way  up 
the  valley  of  the  Moselle  by  Treves  to  Luxembourg  ; 
and  thence  by  Sedan  and  Valenciennes  to  Calais.  Nine 
years  later,  when  he  had  occasion  to  recall  this  visit  to 
the  Rhine,  Disraeli  wrote  :  —  'I  determined  when  descend- 
ing those  magical  waters  that  I  would  not  be  a  lawyer. 
His  father,  forgetful  of  his  own  early  experience,  seems 
not  to  have  yielded  without  a  struggle :  '  a  father  is, 
perhaps,  the  worst  judge  of  his  son's  capacity  ;  he  knows 
too  much  —  and  too  little.'1  But  he  yielded  in  the  end, 
and  though  the  connexion  with  Frederick's  Place  was 
not  formally  severed  at  once,  we  soon  hear  of  the  son 
in  other  fields  of  activity.  '  The  hour  of  adventure  had 
arrived.' 

1  Vivian  Grey,  Bk.  II.  ch.  3. 


CHAPTER   V 

FINANCE  AND  JOURNALISM 

1825 

The  law  was  to  be  abandoned,  but  what  was  to  take 
its  place?  Conscious  of  extraordinary  powers,  and  re- 
solved at  all  hazards  to  find  a  field  for  their  exercise, 
the  young  Disraeli  was  not  to  be  bound  in  the  trammels 
of  any  of  the  conventional  professions.  His  first  attempt 
in  literature  had  failed  and  his  aims,  though  not  yet  defi- 
nitely political,  were  now  clearly  directed  towards  the 
world  of  action.  We  can  imagine  that,  like  Vivian 
Grey  — 

In  the  plenitude  of  his  ambition  he  stopped  one  day  to 
enquire  in  what  manner  he  could  obtain  his  magnificent 
ends: — 'The  Bar — pooh!  law  and  bad  jokes  till  we  are 
forty ;  and  then  with  the  most  brilliant  success,  the  prospect 
of  gout  and  a  coronet.  Besides,  to  succeed  as  an  advocate, 
I  must  be  a  great  lawyer,  and  to  be  a  great  lawyer,  I  must 
give  up  my  chance  of  being  a  great  man.  The  Services  in 
war  time  are  fit  only  for  desperadoes  (and  that  truly  am  I)  ; 
but,  in  peace,  are  fit  only  for  fools.  The  Church  is  more 
rational.  Let  me  see :  I  should  certainly  like  to  act  Wolsey, 
but  the  thousand  and  one  chances  against  me!  and  truly 
I  feel  my  destiny  should  not  be  on  a  chance.  Were  I  the  son 
of  a  Millionaire,  or  a  noble,  I  might  have  all.  Curse  on  my 
lot!  that  the  want  of  a  few  rascal  counters,  and  the  posses- 
sion of  a  little  rascal  blood  should  mar  my  fortunes  ! ' J 

1  Vivian  Grey,  Bk.  I.  ch.  9. 
54 


1825]  LOSSES   ON   THE   STOCK  EXCHANGE  55 

The  rascal  blood  could  not  be  changed,  but  the  rascal 
counters  might  be  won,  and  to  win  them  by  some  speedy 
method  seemed  the  easiest  solution  of  the  problem. 
Even  before  his  visit  to  the  Rhine,  Disraeli,  in  partner- 
ship with  a  fellow  clerk  in  Frederick's  Place  called  Evans, 
had  tried  his  fortune  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  with  what 
results  we  do  not  know,  though  the  stakes  were  probably 
small.  He  now,  however,  increased  them.  The  English 
people  were  at  this  moment  suffering  from  one  of  those 
attacks  of  speculative  mania  to  which  they  are  subject. 
Some  years  of  great  national  prosperity  had  preceded, 
and  for  the  capital  then  accumulated  and  now  seeking 
investment  a  new  outlet  had  been  found  in  the  revolted 
colonies  of  Spain.  Canning's  foreign  policy,  of  which 
these  colonies  were  the  pivot,  helped  to  give  an  air  of 
respectability,  or  even  of  patriotism,  to  the  schemes  of 
company  promoters,  and  presently  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  South  Sea  Bubble  were  reproduced.  The  old 
stories  of  the  mineral  riches  of  the  New  World  were 
revived,  companies  were  formed  in  great  numbers  to 
exploit  them,  and  the  shares  eagerly  bought  by  a  credu- 
lous public.  Disraeli  and  Evans  did  not  escape  the 
prevalent  mania.  At  the  moment  when  they  caught 
the  infection  the  revolted  States  were  clearly  on  the  eve 
of  receiving  formal  recognition  from  England,  and  the 
tide  of  speculation  was  nearing  its  height.  Having 
found  a  confederate  in  another  youth,  the  son,  apparently, 
of  a  rich  stockbroker,  the  partners  began  a  series  of 
operations  in  Spanish  American  shares,  the  first  recorded 
transaction  being  in  November,  1824.  Their  operations 
were  disastrous  from  the  beginning :  by  the  close  of  the 
year  there  was  a  balance  against  them  of  nearly  .£400 ; 
by  the  end  of  January,  1825,  this  adverse  balance  was 
nearly  XI, 000  ;  and  by  the  end  of  June  they  had  lost 
about  ,£7,000,  of  which  half  had  been  paid  in  cash,  pro- 
vided mainly,  it  would  seem,  by  Evans.  It  is  not  clear 
how  the  losses  were  distributed  between  the  partners ; 
the  accounts  that  have  been  preserved  are  confused, 


56  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

nor  is  it  worth  while  to  disentangle  them.  What  concerns 
us  is  that  Disraeli  at  the  age  of  twenty  had  incurred  a 
debt  of  several  thousand  pounds,  a  debt  which  was  not 
finally  liquidated  till  nearly  thirty  years  later,  when  he 
had  already  led  the  House  of  Commons  and  been  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer.  The  '  rascal  counters '  were 
thrown  into  the  scale  against  him,  and  his  folly  or  mis- 
fortune on  this  occasion  was  the  beginning  of  financial 
embarrassments  by  which  he  was  tormented  through  a 
great  portion  of  his  career. 

When  they  began  their  operations  Disraeli  and  Evans 
were  speculating  for  the  fall ;  they  reversed  their  tactics 
and  became  '  bulls,'  most  unluckily  just  at  the  moment 
when  the  market  was  losing  its  buoyancy.  Their  first 
instinctive  judgment  of  the  financial  situation  had  been 
sound,  though  their  action  had  been  premature,  and  the 
change  of  view  and  tactics  may  have  been  owing  to  the  in- 
fluence of  a  man  who  now  for  a  time  plays  an  important 
part  in  the  life  of  Disraeli.  Mr.  John  Diston  Powles  was 
the  head  of  a  financial  house  which  had  been  reaping  a  rich 
harvest  from  the  boom,  and  whose  credit  was  deeply  in- 
volved in  its  continuance  and  justification.  The  firm  had 
promoted  several  mining  companies  with  large  capital, 
and  to  two  of  these,  including  one,  the  Anglo-Mexican 
Mining  Association,  which  had  become  the  focus  of  great 
speculative  excitement,  Messrs.  Swain  and  Stevens 
were  solicitors.  In  this  way,  perhaps,  it  came  about 
that  young  Disraeli  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
Powles,  and,  with  an  extraordinary  power  which  he 
already  possessed  of  influencing  men,  even  of  years 
and  standing  far  greater  than  his  own,  he  appears  speedily 
to  have  won  his  way  into  the  counsels  and  confidence  of 
the  financier,  and  the  two  formed  a  close  alliance.  Disraeli 
possibly  thought  he  had  found  the  road  to  a  great  position 
in  the  world  of  finance,  and  to  the  fortune  of  which  he 
was  in  quest ;  Powles,  on  the  other  hand,  no  doubt  saw 
that  his  young  confederate's  glowing  imagination,  ready 
pen,  and  connexion  through  John  Murray  with  the 


1825]  FIRST   PUBLICATION  57 

world  of  literature  and  journalism,  a  connexion  which, 
we  may  be  sure,  lost  none  of  its  importance  in  the  setting 
forth,  were  assets  that  might  be  turned  to  valuable 
account.  The  speculative  fever  had  risen  to  such  a  height 
that  cool  observers  were  beginning  to  feel  alarm;  Lord 
Eldon,  the  Chancellor,  had  drawn  a  parallel  between 
the  present  mania  and  the  South  Sea  Bubble  ;  and  the 
air  was  full  of  rumours  of  interference  by  the  Legislature. 
To  avert  the  danger  of  such  interference  and  reassure  the 
public,  Disraeli's  pupil  pen  was  enlisted,  and  in  March 
the  first  result  of  his  labours,  a  pamphlet  of  nearly  a 
hundred  pages,  was  published  by  Murray  on  commission, 
under  the  title  of  *  An  Enquiry  into  the  Plans,  Progress, 
and  Policy  of  the  American  Mining  Companies.'  This 
pamphlet,  which  was  anonymous,  seems  to  have  been 
Disraeli's  first  appearance  as  an  author.  Its  ostensible 
aim  was  '  to  afford  the  public  accurate  data  for  forming 
an  opinion  as  to  the  nature  of  these  undertakings,'  and 
so  arriving  at  a  decision  as  to  the  expediency  of  legislative 
interference.  In  pursuance  of  this  aim  our  author 
discourses  learnedly  of  mining  methods,  sets  forth  the 
main  facts  as  to  the  principal  companies,  and  arrives  at 
the  conclusion  that 'their  general  promise  is  performed,' 
that  'the  profits  which  have  accrued  by  managing  the 
American  Mines  in  the  market  are  not  of  an  extraor- 
dinary nature,'  and  that  '  the  value  of  the  shares  of  the 
different  companies  will  be  found  to  be  relative  to  the 
progress  which  they  have  made  in  mining,  and  to  the 
former  reputation  of  the  mines  which  belong  to  them.' 
On  the  question  of  policy  the  line  he  takes  is  high. 
He  compares  the  mining  interest  in  America  to  the 
manufacturing  interest  in  England  and  dwells  on  the 
benefits  to  both  countries  that  must  follow  from  its 
development ;  he  deprecates  in  the  approved  style  of 
nineteenth  century  thought  attempts  to  control  'the 
spirit  of  commercial  enterprise '  ;  and  concludes  with  an 
appeal  to  'our  lawgivers  to  pause  before  they  decide, 
and  to  enquire  before  they  legislate,  and  not  to  be 


58  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

induced  by  frivolous  tales  and  unfounded  fears  to 
restrain  or  prevent  the  agency  of  undertakings  which 
are  not  the  least  conspicuous  parts  of  a  system  on  which 
mainly  depend  the  wealth,  the  power,  and  the  glory  of 
our  country.'  The  style  becomes  more  flowing  and  the 
tone  more  declamatory  as  we  proceed,  and  the  dulness 
of  the  subject  is  relieved  by  occasional  passages  of 
picturesque  impudence.  The  pamphlet  was  dignified 
with  a  review  in  the  G-entlemans  Magazine  1  and  ran 
through  several  editions. 

Presumably  it  realised  the  expectations  of  the  author 
and  his  patrons  ;  for  it  was  shortly  followed  by  another. 
The  second  was  entitled  'Lawyers  and  Legislators,  or 
Notes  on  the  American  Mining  Companies'  and  dedicated 
'  without  permission'  to  Canning,  who  is  lauded  as 
'not  more  eminent  for  his  brilliant  wit  and  classic 
eloquence  than  for  that  sedate  sublimity  of  conception 
which  distinguishes  the  practical  statesman  from  the 
political  theorist.'  In  this  the  note  of  declamation 
rises  even  higher  than  before,  and  in  the  style  there  is 
something  also  of  that  vituperative  quality  which  the 
fashion  of  the  day  encouraged  and  which  runs  through 
all  Disraeli's  earlier  political  writings  and  speeches  till 
he  refined  it  into  the  rapier-like  manner  of  his  full 
maturity.  In  substance  the  second  pamphlet  is  a 
development  of  the  argument  of  the  first  against 
restrictive  legislation.  The  attack  on  Lord  Eldon 
is  pressed  home  with  greater  vigour  than  before. 
The  '  perfect  fallacy '  of  his  parallel  between  the 
present  time  and  that  which  had  generated  the  South 
Sea  Bubble  is  demonstrated  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
writer ;  the  law  and  policy  of  his  observations  in  a  case 
which  had  recently  come  before  the  Courts  are  both 
impugned,  the  former  with  no  small  ostentation  of 
legal  learning  ;  and  the  so-called  Bubble  Act  of  1820, 
with  the  terrors  of  which  the  Chancellor  had  menaced 
the  company  promoters,  is  denounced  as  a  'disgusting 

i  May,  1825. 


1825]  MINING  PAMPHLETS  59 

and  disgraceful  statute,'  a  'miserable  medley  of  royal 
favour  and  penal  legislation,  gracious  charters  and 
terrific  praemunires.1  So  much  for  the  lawyers.  A 
couple  of  legislators,  Mr.  Alexander  Baring  2  and  Mr. 
Hobhouse,3  who  had  raised  their  voices  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  condemnation  of  the  prevalent  mania,  are 
handled  with  even  more  severity  ;  and  in  one  sweeping 
indictment  they  and  all  the  other  assailants  of  the  min- 
ing companies  are  charged  with  '  supporting  their 
anathemas  by  statements  which  are  so  utterly  unfounded 
that  they  might  make  mendacity  blush  and  so  awfully 
ridiculous  that  they  might  make  folly  grave.'  Finally, 
and  not  without  a  certain  insight  and  prescience,  the 
Legislature  is  invited  to  deal  with  the  subject  of  joint 
stock  companies,  though  not  in  a  hostile  spirit,  but 
with  the  purpose  of  recognising  their  existence  and 
making  them  'amenable  to  the  law  of  which  under  the 
present  system  they  are  forced  to  be  independent.' 

• 

Whether  that  policy  will  be  pursued  [our  pamphleteer 
concludes  with  becoming  gravity]  it  is  not  for  us  to  divine. 
These  sentiments  come  not  from  one  who  sits  in  Royal 
Councils,  or  mingles  in  the  assemblies  of  legislative  wisdom, 
but  they  come  from  one  who  has  had  some  opportunity  of 
investigation,  some  patience  for  inquiry,  whose  opinions 
are  unbiased  by  self-interest,  and  uncontrolled  by  party 
influence,  who,  whatever  may  be  the  result  will  feel  some 
satisfaction,  perchance  some  pride,  that  at  a  time  when 
warring  and  inconsistent  councils  were  occasioning  the  very 
ruin  which  they  affected  to  deprecate,  when  Ignorance  was 
the  ready  slave  of  Interest,  and  Truth  was  deserted  by  those 
who  should  have  been  her  stoutest  champions,  there  was  at 
least  one  attempt  to  support  sounder  principles,  and  inculcate 
a  wiser  policy. 

A  third  pamphlet  in  the  series  was  issued  by  Murray 
on  'The  Present  State  of  Mexico';  but  it  was  in  the 

1  The  Act,  or  so  much  of  it  as  related  to  joint  stock  companies, 
was,    on    the    initiative    of    the    Government,    repealed    later    in    the 
Session  of  Parliament. 

2  Afterwards  the  1st  Lord  Ashburton. 

8  John  Cam  Hobhouse,  the  friend  of  Byron,  afterwards  Lord 
Broughton. 


60  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

main  a  translation  of  a  report  presented  to  the  Mexican 
Congress  by  a  Minister  in  high  office  who  was  also  a 
subsidised  ally  of  the  raining  companies.  Disraeli, 
however,  contributed  some  explanatory  notes,  and  intro- 
duced the  Minister  in  question  in  a  memoir  which 
has  no  appearance  of  doing  less  than  justice  to  the 
merits  of  its  subject  or  the  other  Mexican  statesmen  of 
the  day.  '  Inconsiderate  ignorance,'  it  is  true,  was 
'daily  stigmatising  them  as  weak  and  unprincipled 
adventurers.'  But  'if  they  be  not  pure  and  practical 
patriots,'  exclaims  the  indignant  biographer  in  one  of  his 
roundest  periods,  'we  know  not  what  names  should 
be  inscribed  on  the  illustrious  scroll  of  national  grati- 
tude.' 

The  brilliant  pen  of  the  young  pamphleteer,  whatever 
else  it  may  have  accomplished,  did  not  avail,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  save  his  private  speculations  from  disaster. 
He  was  still  undismayed;  but  as  the  fortune  which  was 
to  serve  as  a  main  instrument  of  his  ambition  had  eluded 
his  grasp,  it  became  necessary  to  frame  some  new 
combination,  and  the  materials  were  soon  discovered. 
In  his  preoccupation  with  finance  Disraeli  had  not 
forgotten  nor  been  forgotten  by  his  old  friend  John 
Murray.  He  seems  even  to  have  persuaded  Murray 
into  joining  him  in  a  speculation  in  South  American 
shares;  and  as  the  mining  pamphlets  could  hardly  be 
regarded  as  a  contribution  to  literature,  Murray  in  his 
turn  provided  his  young  ally  with  another  opportunity 
of  making  an  appearance  as  an  author.1  Having  decided 
to  issue  for  English  readers  a  Life  of  Paul  Jones,  based 
on  the  same  material  as  the  Life  by  Sherburne,  which  was 
on  the  eve  of  publication  in  the  United  States,  Murray 
entrusted  the  manuscript  to  young  Disraeli  and  requested 
him  to  prepare  it  for  the  press.  Immersed  in  what  he 
no  doubt  thought  was  more  important  business,  the 
editor  seems  to  have  discharged  his  duty  in  a  rather 

1  Smiles,  H.,  pp.  182-194. 


1825]  A   NEWSPAPER  PROJECT  61 

perfunctory  manner,  but  the  work1  in  due  course  appeared 
with  a  preface2  from  his  pen,  which  is  remarkable  only 
for  its  flatness  and  banality.  Meanwhile,  Murray  had 
formed  the  habit  of  consulting  the  precocious  youth  in 
the  perplexities  of  his  business,  had  learnt  to  place  a 
high  value  on  his  judgment,3  and  had  taken  him  into 
his  confidence  with  ever-diminishing  reserve.  Encour- 
aged by  the  success  of  the  Quarterly  Review,  Murray  had 
for  some  time  cherished  the  ambition  of  establishing  a 
periodical  which  should  appear  at  more  frequent  intervals; 
and  in  a  fateful  moment  he  confided  this  ambition  to 
his  young  adviser.4  Disraeli's  eager  imagination  at  once 
went  to  work  and  discovered  possibilities  latent  in  the 
project  that  Murray  had  never  dreamt  of.  The  Times 
had  already  taken  a  commanding  position  in  daily 
journalism,  but  it  was  too  independent  of  party  affilia- 
tions to  suit  an  ardent  Canningite  such  as  Disraeli,  with 
his  new  world  interests,  had  now  become.  Why,  asked 
the  audacious  youth,  should  it  not  be  possible  to  establish 
a  daily  paper  in  the  Conservative  interest  which  should 
equal  or  even  surpass  The  Times  in  influence  ?  And 
who  more  fitted  than  Benjamin  Disraeli,  with  Murray's 
resources  behind  him  and  assistance  from  his  new  friends 

1 '  The  Life  of  Paul  Jones,  from  original  documents  in  the  pos- 
session of  John  Henry  Sherburne,  Esq.,  Register  of  the  Navy  of  the 
United  States.  London,  John  Murray,  1825.'  The  exact  relation- 
ship of  the  English  book  to  the  American  is  not  clear  ;  but  the 
former  seems  also  to  have  been  written  by  an  American,  and  the 
original  manuscript,  which  has  been  preserved,  shows  that  Disraeli's 
share  in  it  was  limited  to  the  introduction  here  and  there  of  a  word 
or  phrase  where  the  excision  of  a  passage  rendered  such  amendment 
necessary. 

2  Dr.  Smiles  treats  this  preface  as  Disraeli's  earliest  appearance 
as  an  author ;  but  the  first  of  the  Mining  Pamphlets  was  published 
in  March,  and  the  Life  of  Paul  Jones  not  till  September. 

8  It  was  to  Disraeli's  advice,  for  instance,  that  the  publication  of 
Crofton  Croker's  Fairy  Legends  of  Ireland,  one  of  the  successful  books 
of  the  time,  appears  to  have  been  due. 

4  For  the  story  of  The  Representative  see  Smiles'  Life  of  Murray, 
II.  ch.  26 ;  Lang's  Life  of  Lockhart,  I,  ch.  12  ;  and  Scott's  Familiar 
Letters,  II.,  Appendix. 


62  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

in  the  City,  to  be  the  triumphant  organiser?  He  was 
without  experience,  it  is  true ;  but  *  If  a  person  have 
imagination,  experience  appears  to  me  of  little  use,'  and 
this  heresy  of  Contarini  Fleming's,  if  heresy  it  be,  was 
one  from  which  Disraeli  was  never  quite  delivered. 
It  was  an  easy  matter  to  persuade  himself  of  the  feasibility 
of  the  scheme,  and  once  persuaded  he  threw  himself 
into  it  with  all  the  eager  enthusiasm  of  a  temperament 
that  was  impulsive  by  nature  and,  well  as  the  fact  was 
concealed  in  after  years,  remained  impulsive  to  the  end. 
The  first  step  was  to  win  Murray's  acquiescence,  and 
Murray  was  pursued,  as  he  afterwards  put  it,  '  with 
unrelenting  excitement  and  importunity,' 1  till  he  yielded. 
Powles  was  then  approached  and  his  support  secured. 
He  and  Murray  were  made  acquainted  by  Disraeli's 
intervention,  about  the  end  of  July,  and  on  August  3  the 
three  signed  an  agreement  for  the  establishment  of  a 
morning  paper  under  Murray's  management,  the  property 
in  which  was  to  be  vested  as  to  one-half  in  Murray  and 
as  to  •  the  other  in  equal  shares  in  Powles  and  Disraeli, 
the  three  contributing  the  capital  in  like  proportions. 
Where  Disraeli's  share  of  the  capital  was  to  come  from 
does  not  appear,  and  was  a  subject  to  which  probably 
that  sanguine  youth  gave  little  consideration ;  but  Mur- 
ray, who  must  have  known  his  want  of  resources,  no  doubt 
regarded  Powles  as  good  enough  for  the  share  of  both. 

The  paper  was  to  make  its  first  appearance  early  in 
the  new  year,  and  in  the  meantime  an  organisation  had 
to  be  created  and  multitudinous  details  to  be  arranged. 
The  first  problem  was  to  find  an  editor,  and  for  some 
reason  Murray  had  fixed  on  Lockhart,  Scott's  son-in-law, 
as  the  most  suitable  person  for  the  post.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  the  suggestion  may  have  come  from 

1  Smiles,  II.,  p.  217.  It  is  well  to  note,  however,  that  this  phrase 
was  used  when  Murray  was  smarting  from  the  disappointment  of  recent 
failure.  At  an  earlier  stage  of  the  enterprise  he  wrote  to  Jerdan :  —  'I 
have  never  attempted  anything  with  more  considerate  circumspection.'  — 
Ibid,  p.  205. 


1825J  MISSION   TO   ABBOTSFORD  63 

Canning,  with  whom  Murray  was  in  communication,  and 
to  whom  apparently  he  presented,  or  endeavoured  to 
present,  Disraeli.1  At  all  events,  Murray  resolved  to 
consult  Sir  Walter,  who  had  given  him  valuable  aid  in  the 
establishment  of  the  Quarterly  ;  and  as  the  matter  was 
too  delicate  to  be  settled  by  correspondence,  Disraeli 
was  despatched  to  the  North  to  try  the  effect  of  his 
persuasive  eloquence  in  the  conduct  of  the  negotiations. 
He  was  armed  with  two  letters  of  introduction  to  Lock- 
hart  —  one  from  Murray,  in  which  he  is  described  as  '  my 
most  particular  and  confidential  young  friend,'  and 
Lockhart  is  requested  to  receive  his  communications 
'as  if  they  were  given  to  you  in  person  by  myself;  the 
other  from  a  Mr.  Wright,  a  barrister,  who,  by  Murray's 
wish,  '  suggests  the  place  of  superintendent  of  the  new 
paper,'  and  adds  his  belief  that  Canning  wishes  Lockhart 
to  accept.2  Disraeli's  own  letters  to  Murray  give  a 
graphic  account  of  the  mission,  and  incidentally  show 
that  the  young  plenipotentiary  neither  underrated  its 
importance  nor  failed  to  take  himself  as  seriously  as  the 
occasion  required. 

The  first  letter,  written  apparently  on  September  17,3 
is  from  Edinburgh,  where  he  had  arrived  the  night 
before,  having  '  slept  at  Stamford,  York,  and  Newcastle, 
and  by  so  doing  felt  quite  fresh  at  the  end  of  my  journey. 
I  never  preconceived  a  place  better  than  Edinburgh. 
It  is  exactly  what  I  fancied  it,  and  certainly  is  the  most 
beautiful  town  in  the  world.'  He  has  already  discovered 
that  Lockhart  is  at  Chiefswood,  his  country  cottage 
near  Abbotsford,  and  has  despatched  Wright's  letter 
thither ;  and  he  has  visited  a  printing  and  bookbinding 
establishment,  where  his  eyes  are  open  for  suggestions 
as  becomes  a  practical  man  of  business.  '  I  intend  to 
examine  the  whole  minutely  before  I  leave,  as  it  may 
be  useful.  I  never  thought  of  binding.  Suppose  you 
were  to  sew,  &c.,  your  own  publications.' 

i  Smiles,  II.,  p.  189.  2Lang,  pp.  364,  367. 

8  Dr.  Smiles's  dates  are  obviously  inaccurate. 


64  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

I  arrived  at  York  in  the  midst  of  the  Grand  Festival.  It 
was  late  at  night  when  I  arrived,  but  the  streets  were  crowded 
and  continued  so  for  hours.  I  never  witnessed  a  city  in  such 
an  extreme  bustle  and  so  delightfully  gay.  It  was  a  perfect 
carnival.  I  postponed  my  journey  from  five  in  the  morning 
to  eleven,  and  by  so  doing  got  an  hour  for  the  Minster,  where 
I  witnessed  a  scene  which  must  have  far  surpassed,  by  all 
accounts,  the  celebrated  commemoration  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  York  Minster  baffles  all  conception.  Westminster 
Abbey  is  a  toy  to  it.  I  think  it  is  impossible  to  conceive 
of  what  Gothic  architecture  is  susceptible  until  you  see  York. 
I  speak  with  the  cathedrals  of  the  Netherlands  and  the  Rhine 
fresh  in  my  memory.  I  witnessed  in  York  another  splendid 
sight  —  the  pouring  in  of  all  the  nobility  and  gentry  of  the 
neighbourhood  and  the  neighbouring  counties.  The  four- 
in-hands  of  the  Yorhshire  squires,  the  splendid  rivalry  in 
liveries  and  outriders,  and  the  immense  quantity  of  gorgeous 
equipages — numbers  with  four  horses  —  formed  a  scene 
which  you  can  only  witness  in  the  mighty  and  aristocratic 
county  of  York.  It  beat  a  Drawing  Room  hollow,  as  much 
as  an  oratorio  in  York  Minster  does  a  concert  in  the  Opera 
House.  The  delightful  stay  at  York  quite  refreshed  me. 
.  .  .  I  find  Froissart  a  most  entertaining  companion, 
just  the  fellow  for  a  traveller's  evening ;  and  just  the  work, 
too,  for  it  needs  neither  books  of  reference  nor  accumulation 
of  MS. 

Next  day  he  writes  from  Edinburgh  again.  Lockhart 
has  invited  him  to  Chiefswood,  and  he  will  of  course 
accept  the  invitation.  'I  intend  to  go  to  Melrose 
to-morrow,  but  as  I  will  not  take  the  chance  of  meeting 
him  the  least  tired,  I  shall  sleep  at  Melrose  and  call  on 
the  following  morning.  '  Then  with  an  impressive  air 
of  mystery  he  gives  Murray  a  code  under  which,  owing  to 
the  very  delicate  nature  of  the  names  he  will  have  to 
mention,  he  deems  it  wise  to  veil  them  ;  and,  this  serious 
business  disposed  of,  he  unbends  sufficiently  to  end  his 
letter  with  the  information  'I  revel  in  the  various 
beauties  of  a  Scotch  breakfast  ;  cold  grouse  and  mar- 
malade find  me,  however,  constant. ' 

The  third  letter  is  worth  giving  at  greater  length. 


1825]  DISRAELI   AND   LOCKHART  65 


To  John  Murray. 

CHIEFS  WOOD, 

Kept.  [21?]  1825. 

MY  DEAR  SIB, 

I  arrived  at  Chief  swood  yesterday.  M.  [Lockhart]  had 
conceived  that  it  was  my  father  who  was  coming.  He  was 
led  to  believe  this  through  Wright's  letter.  In  addition, 
therefore,  to  his  natural  reserve  there  was,  of  course,  an 
evident  disappointment  at  seeing  me.  Everything  looked 
as  black  as  possible.  I  shall  not  detain  you  now  by  informing 
you  of  fresh  particulars.  I  leave  them  for  when  we  meet. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  a  few  hours  we  completely  understood 
each  other,  and  were  upon  the  most  intimate  terms.  M. 
enters  into  our  views  with  a  facility  and  readiness  which  were 
capital.  He  thinks  that  nothing  can  be  more  magnificent 
and  excellent ;  but  two  points  immediately  occurred :  first, 
the  difficulty  of  his  leaving  Edinburgh  without  any 
ostensible  purpose ;  and,  secondly,  the  losing  caste  in  society 
by  so  doing.  He  is  fully  aware  that  he  may  end  by  making 
his  situation  as  important  as  any  in  the  empire,  but  the 
primary  difficulty  is  insurmountable.  .  .  . 

The  Chevalier  [Sir  Walter]  breakfasted  here  to-day,  and 
afterwards  we  were  all  three  closeted  together.  The  Chevalier 
entered  into  it  excellently.  .  .  .  He  agrees  with  me  that  M. 
cannot  accept  an  official  situation  of  any  kind,  as  it  would 
compromise  his  independence,  but  he  thinks  Parliament  for 
M.  indispensable,  and  also  very  much  to  our  interest.  I  dine 
at  Abbotsford  to-day,  and  we  shall  most  probably  again 
discuss  matters. 

Now,  these  are  the  points  which  occur  to  me.  When  M. 
comes  to  town,  it  will  be  most  important  that  it  should  be 
distinctly  proved  to  him  that  he  will  be  supported  by  the 
great  interests  I  have  mentioned  to  him.  He  must  see  that, 
through  Powles,  all  America  and  the  Commercial  Interest 
is  at  our  beck;  that  Wilmot  H[orton],1  &c.,  not  as  mere 
tinder-secretary,  but  as  our  private  friend,  is  most  staunch ; 
that  the  Chevalier  is  firm  ;  that  the  West  India  Interest  will 
pledge  themselves ;  that  such  men  and  in  such  situations 
as  Barrow,2  &c.,  &c.,  are  distinctly  in  our  power ;  and,  finally, 
that  he  is  coming  to  London,  not  to  be  an  Editor  of  a 
Newspaper,  but  the  Director-General  of  an  immense  organ, 

1  Under-Secretary  for  War    and    the    Colonies    in    Lord  Liverpool's 
Administration. 

2  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty,  afterwards  Sir  John  Barrow ;  the  well- 
known  founder  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society. 

VOL.  i  —  F 


66  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

and  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  high-bred  gentlemen  and 
important  interests. 

The  Chevalier  and  M.  have  unburthened  themselves  to  me 
in  a  manner  the  most  confidential  that  you  can  possibly 
conceive.  Of  M.'s  capability,  perfect  complete  capability, 
there  is  no  manner  of  doubt.  Of  his  sound  principles,  and  of 
his  real  views  in  life,  I  could  in  a  moment  satisfy  you.  Rest 
assured,  however,  that  you  are  dealing  with  a  perfect 
gentleman.  There  has  been  no  disguise  to  me  of  what  has 
been  done,  and  the  Chevalier  had  a  private  conversation 
with  me  on  the  subject,  of  a  nature  the  most  satisfactory. 
With  regard  to  other  plans  of  ours,  if  we  could  get  him  up, 
we  should  find  him  invaluable.  I  have  a  most  singular  and 
secret  history  on  this  subject  when  we  meet. 

Now,  on  the  grand  point  —  Parliament.  M.  cannot  be  a 
representative  of  a  Government  Borough.  It  is  impossible. 
He  must  be  free  as  air.  I  am  sure  that  if  this  could  be 
arranged,  all  would  be  settled;  but  it  is  "indispensable" 
without  you  can  suggest  anything  else.  M.  was  two  days 
in  company  with  X.  [Canning]  this  summer,  as  well  as  X.'s 
and  our  friend,  but  nothing  transpired  of  our  views.  This 
is  a  most  favourable  time  to  make  a  parliamentary  arrange- 
ment. What  do  you  think  of  making  a  confidant  of  Wilmot 
H.  ?  He  is  the  kind  of  man  who  would  be  right  pleased  by 
such  conduct.  There  is  no  harm  of  Lockhart's  coming  in 
for  a  Tory  Borough,  because  he  is  a  Tory ;  but  a  Ministerial 
borough  is  impossible  to  be  managed. 

If  this  point  could  be  arranged,  I  have  no  doubt  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  organise,  in  the  interest  with  which  I  am 
now  engaged,  a  most  immense  party,  and  a  most  serviceable 
one.  Be  so  kind  as  not  to  leave  the  vicinity  of  London,  in 
case  M.  and  myself  come  up  suddenly ;  but  I  pray  you,  if  you 
have  any  real  desire  to  establish  a  mighty  engine,  to  exert 
yourself  at  this  present  moment,  and  assist  me  to  your  very 
utmost.  Write  as  soon  as  possible,  to  give  me  some  idea 
of  your  movements,  and  direct  to  me  here,  as  I  shall  then  be 
sure  to  obtain  your  communication.  The  Chevalier  and 
all  here  have  the  highest  idea  of  Wright's  nous,  and  think 
it  most  important  that  he  should  be  at  the  head  of  the  legal 
department.  I  write  this  despatch  in  the  most  extreme 
haste.  Ever  yours,  B.  D. 

Before  the  end  of  the  month  lie  writes  again  :  — 

The  Abbotsford  and  Chiefswood  families  have  placed  me 
on  such  a  friendly  and  familiar  footing,  that  it  is  utterly 
impossible  for  me  to  leave  them  while  there  exists  any  chance 


1825]  MURRAY   ON   DISRAELI  67 

of  M.'s  going  to  England.  M.  has  introduced  me  to  most  of 
the  neighbouring  gentry,  and  receives  with  a  loud  laugh 
any  mention  of  my  return  to  Edinburgh.  I  dined  with  Dr. 
Brewster  the  other  day.  He  has  a  pretty  place  near 
Melrose.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  give  you  any  written 
idea  of  the  beauty  and  unique  character  of  Abbotsford. 

His  father  was  delighted  with  these  letters  from  the 
'young  plenipotentiary.'  'I  know  nothing  against  him 
but  his  youth,'  he  wrote  to  Murray,  'a  fault  which  a 
few  seasons  of  experience  will  infallibly  correct ;  but  I 
have  observed  that  the  habits  and  experience  he  has 
acquired  as  a  lawyer  often  greatly  serve  him  on  matters 
of  business.  His  views  are  vast,  but  they  are  based  on 
good  sense,  and  he  is  most  determinedly  serious  when  he 
sets  to  work.'  Still  more  interesting  is  Murray's  own 
opinion  of  his  youthful  partner. 


John  Murray  to  J.    G.   Lockhart. 

Sept.  25,  1825. 

I  left  my  young  friend  Disraeli  to  make  his  own  way  with 
you,  confident  that,  if  my  estimation  of  him  were  correct, 
you  would  not  be  long  in  finding  him  out.  But  as  you  have 
received  him  with  so  much  kindness  and  favour,  I  think  it 
right  to  confirm  the  good  opinion  which  you  appear  so  early 
to  have  formed  of  him,  by  communicating  to  you  a  little  of 
my  own.  And  I  may  frankly  say,  that  I  never  met  with  a 
young  man  of  greater  promise,  from  the  sterling  qualifica- 
tions which  he  already  possesses.  He  is  a  good  scholar,  hard 
student,  a  deep  thinker,  of  great  energy,  equal  perseverance, 
and  indefatigable  application,  and  a  complete  man  of  business. 
His  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  the  practical  tendency 
of  all  his  ideas,  have  often  surprised  me  in  a  young  man  who 
has  hardly  passed  his  twentieth  year,  and  above  all,  his  mind 
and  heart  are  as  pure  as  when  they  were  first  formed ;  a  most 
excellent  temper,  too,  and  with  young  people,  by  whom  he 
is  universally  loved,  as  playful  as  a  child.  I  have  been 
acquainted  with  him  from  his  birth,  but  it  is  only  within 
the  last  twelve  months  that  I  have  known  him.  I  can  pledge 
my  honour,  therefore,  with  the  assurance  that  he  is  worthy 
of  any.  degree  of  confidence  that  you  may  be  induced  to  repose 
in  him  —  discretion  being  another  of  his  qualifications.  If 
our  great  plan  should  take  effect  I  am  certain  that  you  will 


68  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

find  in  him  a  most  invaluable,  trustworthy  friend,  from  whose 
energies  you  may  derive  the  most  valuable  assistance.  But  he 
is  yet  very  young.1 

Disraeli's  stay  at  Chiefswood  lasted  about  three 
weeks.  *  Here,'  writes  Sir  Walter  immediately  after  his 
departure,  'has  been  a  visitor  of  Lockhart's,  a  sprig  of 
the  root  of  Aaron,  young  D 'Israeli.  In  point  of  talents 
he  reminded  me  of  his  father,  for  what  sayeth  Mungo's 
garland  ?  — 

"Crapaud  pickanini, 
Crapaud  himself," 

which  means  a  young  coxcomb  is  like  the  old  one  who 
got  him.'2  It  is  clear  that  the  'young  coxcomb'  made 
no  small  impression  on  both  Scott  and  Lockhart,  and 
succeeded  in  enlisting  the  interest  of  both  in  the  'great 
plan'  which  he  had  invented.  But  the  obstacle  to  which 
he  alludes  in  his  first  letter  from  Chiefswood  was  not 
easily  overcome.  In  those  days  it  would  appear  the 
editorship  of  a  daily  newspaper  was  not  supposed  to  be 
an  office  that  became  'a  scholar  and  a  gentleman,'  and 
neither  the  title  of  '  Superintendent '  nor  Disraeli's  still 
more  splendid  appellation,  '  Director-General  of  an 
immense  organ'  could  overcome  the  fastidiousness  of 
Scott  and  his  son-in-law,  or  reconcile  them  to  the  'loss 
of  caste'  which  an  undisguised  acceptance  of  Murray's 
proposal  was  thought  to  involve.  Lockhart,  however, 
came  to  London  with  Disraeli  in  the  second  week  of 
October,  and  there  a  compromise  was  arranged.  A 
vacancy  was  about  to  occur  in  the  editorship  of  the 
Quarterly  Review,  and  this  apparently  was  an  office  that 
ranked  as  quite  '  respectable '  ;.  so  two  agreements  were 
signed  in  the  presence  of  Disraeli,  by  one  of  which  Lockhart 
became  editor  of  the  Quarterly  at  a  salary  of  XI, 000  a 
year,  while  by  the  other  he  undertook  '  to  the  best  of  his 
skill  and  ability  to  aid  and  assist '  Murray  in  the  produc- 

1  Scott's  Familiar  Letters,  II. ,  p.  405. 

2  Ibid.,  II.,  p.  355. 


1825]  DISRAELI'S   ENERGY  69 

tion  of  his  newspaper,  to  write  articles  for  publication 
therein,  and  '  by  all  other  means  consistent  with  his 
rank  in  life  to  promote  the  sale  and  character'  of  the 
said  newspaper,  receiving  for  these  services  .£1,500  a 
year.1 

On  his  return  to  town  Disraeli  flung  himself  into  the 
work  of  organisation  with  headlong  energy.  Premises 
had  to  be  taken,  offices  to  be  planned,  a  printing  establish- 
ment to  be  fitted  up ;  reporters  and  sub-editors  had  to  be 
interviewed  and  engaged,  contributions  to  be  secured 
from  commercial  authorities  in  the  City,  and  home  and 
foreign  correspondents  to  be  appointed  and  instructed. 
In  all  he  was  indefatigable.  He  employs  his  cousin 
Basevi  as  architect  or  arranges  for  the  examination  of 
title  when  a  building  has  been  secured.  He  writes  one 
day  to  his  host  of  the  previous  year  at  Coblenz,  whom 
he  found  '  a  most  excellent  fellow,'  assures  him  that  the 
new  paper  is  to  be  '  the  focus  of  the  information  of  the 
whole  world,'  and  that  'the  most  celebrated  men  in 
Europe  have  promised  their  assistance  to  Mr.  Murray  in 
his  great  project,'  and  enlists  him  as  correspondent  for 
the  Rhine.  '  I  have  been  engaged  at  the  magnum  opus 
unceasingly  since  we  parted,'  he  tells  Lockhart  on  the 
day  following.  '  I  have  received  six  letters  from  different 
correspondents  in  the  Levant  and  Morea  who  all  appear 
very  intelligent.  I  have  written  to  them  fully.'  Or 
again,  '  Much,  my  dear  Lockhart,  has  happened  since  we 
parted,  I  think  of  importance.  In  the  first  place  Maginn 
is  engaged.  I  called  upon  the  Doctor  shortly  after  your 
departure.'  Maginn  was  a  journalist  of  experience 
whose  services  they  were  anxious  to  secure,  but  in  this 
interview  with  Disraeli  he  was  inclined  at  first  to  dismiss 
the  whole  project  as  ridiculous. 

1  Mr.  Lang  shows  a  curious  anxiety  to  minimise  the  part  Lockhart 
played  in  connexion  with  The  Representative,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt 
whatever  that  Lockhart  was  at  first  virtually  editor,  as  there  can  equally 
be  no  doubt  that  he  was  quite  unfitted  for  the  post.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  in  the  agreement  between  him  and  Murray,  though  Disraeli  signed 
as  witness,  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  Murray  had  partners  in  his 
undertaking. 


70  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

As  I  felt  the  importance  of  arguing  the  question  with  a  man 
who  might  fairly  be  considered  a  very  prosopopoeia  of  the 
public  press,  I  thought  the  experiment  might  be  hazarded 
of  giving  him  a  slight  and  indefinite  sketch  of  our  intentions. 
This  I  did  with  great  caution,  and  mentioning  no  names. 
To  give  you  an  idea  of  the  effect  I  produced  is  utterly  impos- 
sible. The  Doctor  started  from  his  chair  like  Giovanni  in  the 
banquet  scene,  and  seemed  as  astounded,  —  as  attonitus  —  as 
Porsenna  when  Scaevola  missed  him.  A  new  world  seemed 
open  to  him,  and  this  sneering  scribe,  this  man  of  vast  experi- 
ence, who  had  so  smiled  at  our  first  mentioning  of  the  business, 
ended  by  saying  that  as  to  the  success  of  the  affair  doubt 
could  not  exist,  and  that  a  year  could  not  elapse  without  our 
being  the  very  first  paper  going.  ...  In  brief,  the  Doctor 
goes  to  Paris.1 

In  the  same  letter  he  transmits  to  Lockhart  '  a  sketch 
of  our  correspondence  at  present  established.'  He  has 
provided  for  all  South  America,  for  the  United  States 
and  Mexico,  for  all  the  Levant,  and  for  every  important 
place  in  Europe  from  Constantinople  to  Paris  and  from 
Rome  to  St.  Petersburg.  He  has  been  '  very  much 
assisted  in  this  grand  coup  of  Germany  by  Mrs.  Wm. 
Elliot,2  who,  when  devoid  of  humbug,  is  very  clever.'  '  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  a  few  days  I  shall  get  a  most 
excellent  correspondent  at  Cadiz  ;  but  I  have  not  yet 
succeeded  in  Madrid,  which  is  most  important.'  '  We 
have  established  also  at  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  Manchester, 
Birmingham,  etc.,  etc.: — actually  established.' 

About  the  middle  of  November  Disraeli  was  at 
Chiefswood  again,  and  an  entry  in  Sir  Walter's  journal 
tells  us  the  object  of  this  second  visit.  A  cabal  headed 
apparently  by  John  Wilson  Croker,  Secretary  to  the 
Admiralty,  had  been  formed  among  the  old  contributors 
to  the  Quarterly  against  Lockhart's  appointment  as 
Editor.  Murray,  'the  most  timorous,  as  Byron  called 
him,  of  all  God's  booksellers,'  took  fright  at  their 
opposition,  so  '  down  comes  young  D'Israeli  to  Scotland 
imploring  Lockhart  to  make  interest  with  my  friends 

1  Scott's  Letters,  II.,  p.  408. 

2  A  lady  of  German  birth  who  had  married  Murray's  brother-in-law. 


1825]  SECOND  VISIT  TO   ABBOTSFORD  71 

in  London  to  remove  objections  and  so  forth.'  Scott 
wrote  to  a  couple  of  his  friends,  and  he  also  wrote  to 
Murray  himself  '  in  something  of  a  determined  style.' 
4  My  physic,'  he  remarks,  '  has  wrought  well,  for  it 
brought  a  letter  from  Murray  saying  all  was  right,  that 
D'Israeli  was  sent  to  me  not  to  Lockhart  .  .  .  and 
other  incoherencies  which  intimate  his  fright  has  got 
into  another  quarter.'1  The  result  was  that  when  Dis- 
raeli returned  to  London  on  November  21  he  found  himself 
in  disgrace. 

To  J.  G.  Lockhart. 

Nov.  21,  half -past  Jive  o'clock. 

I  have  arrived  after  a  most  fatiguing  journey.  I  went 
immediately  to  the  Emperor  [Murray],  and  my  reception 
was  most  unfavourable.  I  would  use  a  harsher  word  if  I 
remembered  one.  .  .  .  He  swears  that  he  understood 
I  undertook  to  go  to  Sir  W.  au  secret,  and  not  to  you ;  that  I 
have  ruined  and  meUed  everything,  etc. ;  that  he  only  wanted 
Sir  W.  to  write  a  few  letters  in  consequence  of  the  spirit 
evinced  against  you,  &c.,  &c.  I  was  too  ill  to  answer  him 
and  I  tmst  to  the  course  of  events  to  settle  all  things.  He 
swears  also  that  I  ought  not  to  have  mentioned  Barrow's 
name,  &c.  All  these  things,  I  need  not  tell  you,  appear  to 
me  very  extraordinary,  as  I  am  not  aware  of  having  violated 
any  confidence  or  instructions  whatever. 

By  the  following  morning,  however,  the  wearied 
traveller  has  recovered  his  elasticity,  and  '  three  hours' 
uninterrupted  conversation  with  Murray,'  puts  everything 
right  again. 

To  J.  G.  Lockhart. 

Nov.  22,  1825. 
MY  DEAR  LOCKHART, 

Forget  the  letter,  which,  in  a  moment  of  great  agitation 
about  your  business,  and  utterly  exhausted  in  mind  and  body 
I  wrote  you  yesterday  evening.  I  rose  this  morning,  having 
previously  sworn  by  the  God  of  the  Silver  Bow  to  slay  the 
mighty  Python  of  humbug,  whose  vigorous  and  enormous 
folds  were  so  fast  and  fatally  encircling  us.  Thank  the 
God,  I  have  succeeded!  You  will  now  come  to  London  in 
triumph.  —  Yours  ever,  B.  D.2 

1  Scott's  Journal,  I.,  pp.  21,  22. 

2  Scott's  Letters,  II.,  pp.  410,  411. 


72  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

That  he  did  not  overrate  his  success  Murray  himself 
furnishes  testimony  in  a  letter  to  Lockhart  on  the 
following  day. 

I  have  yesterday  and  to-day  listened  to  Mr.  Disraeli's 
admirable  details  of  his  conferences  with  you  and  Sir  Walter, 
and  I  can  now  state  with  my  whole  heart  that  nothing  could 
have  proved  more  completely  gratifying;  it  has  put  me  into 
complete  possession  of  your  views  and  character,  and  I  can 
only  repeat  what  I  told  him  to  say  to  you,  that  after  this, 
Heaven  and  Earth  may  pass  away,  but  it  cannot  shake  my 
opinion.1 

It  was  probably  at  this  time  that  Disraeli  first  began 
to  feel  that  dislike  of  Croker  which  was  to  find 
memorable  expression  in  Coningsby.  In  a  letter  to 
Murray  he  speaks,  with  obvious  reference  to  Croker 
and  Barrow,  of  '  the  junta  of  official  scamps  who  have 
too  long  enslaved  you.'  To  Lockhart  he  is  even  more 
explicit :  — 

I  have  often  complained  to  you  of  Murray's  inconsistency, 
vacillation,  and  indecision.  I  have  done  more,  I  have 
complained  of  them  to  himself.  I  regret  it.  Had  I  had 
any  conception  of  the  intriguing,  selfish  and  narrow-minded 
officials  by  whom  he  has  been  so  long  surrounded,  I  certainly 
would  have  restrained  my  sentiments,  and  have  pitied  the 
noble  and  generous-minded  being  who  was  subjected  to  such 
disgusting  thraldom.  ...  It  is  impossible  in  a  letter 
to  give  you  any  idea  of  the  agitating  and  curious  scenes 
which  have  taken  place  during  these  last  days.  The  scales, 
however,  have  at  length  fallen  from  our  friend's  eyes,  and 
the  walls  of  the  Admiralty  have  resounded  to  his  firm  and 
bold  but  gentlemanly  tones.  .  .  .  Thank  God  I  did  not 
postpone  my  departure  to  town  one  other  second ! 2 

With  the  obscure  intrigues  to  which  this  and  other 
letters  refer  we  are  not  much  concerned.  Lockhart 
came  to  London  in  the  first  week  of  December,  and  a 
fortnight  later,  at  Disraeli's  suggestion  and  with  the 
approbation  of  all,  the  new  paper  was  named  The 
Representative.  There,  as  far  as  Disraeli  is  involved, 
the  story  abruptly  ends.  In  a  letter  to  Lockhart  on 
November  28  he  alludes  to  '  the  terrific  agitation  in  which 

i  Scott's  Letters,  II.,  p.  414.  2  Ibid.,  II.,  p.  413. 


1826]         FAILURE   OF   'THE   REPRESENTATIVE'  73 

the  city  and  the  whole  commercial  interest  have  been 
thrown  during  the  last  three  weeks.'  About  the  middle 
of  December  the  agitation  culminated  in  panic,  and  the 
crash  which  had  for  some  time  been  inevitable  came, 
spreading  disaster  far  and  wide,  and  burying  Disraeli's 
hopes  in  the  general  ruin.  Thenceforth,  at  all  events, 
his  name  disappears  from  the  records  which  tell  the 
story  of  The  Representative,  and  it  is  probably  a  safe  con- 
jecture to  seek  the  explanation  in  the  bursting  of  the 
City  bubble,  though  we  know  nothing  definite.1  Murray 
went  on  with  his  enterprise,  and  in  due  course  the  paper 
was  published  ;  but,  badly  managed  and  badly  edited, 
it  was  a  failure  from  the  beginning,  and  after  a  flickering 
life  of  half  a  year  and  a  cost  to  its  proprietor  of  £  26,000 
it  ceased  to  exist. 

So  ended  this  bold  attempt  by  the  young  Disraeli  to 
storm  the  heights  to  which  his  ambition  aspired.  In 
after  years,  it  would  seem,  his  memory  dwelt  with  little 
pleasure  on  the  episode.  He  had  more  than  once  to 
deny  statements  that  he  had  been  the  editor  of  The 
Representative,  but  as  to  his  real  connexion  with  the 
enterprise  he  was  silent.  There  is  nothing  surprising 
in  this ;  public  men  do  not  love  to  have  their  names 
associated  with  failure,  and  Disraeli  was  no  exception. 
But  apart  from  the  failure  there  is  nothing  discredit- 

1  Dr.  Smiles,  indeed,  definitely  states  that,  when  the  time  came 
for  Murray's  partners  to  contribute  their  share  of  the  capital,  they 
both  of  them  failed  to  fulfil  their  engagements  ;  but  this  still  leaves 
something  unexplained  in  the  story  as  it  affects  Disraeli,  for  Mr.  Powles, 
as  the  correspondence  shows,  retained  his  position  in  respect  of  Murray 
and  the  newspaper  apparently  unquestioned  for  at  least  a  couple  of 
months  after  Disraeli  had  disappeared.  As  some  things  in  the  published 
accounts  of  these  transactions  have  given  offence  to  the  living  represent- 
atives of  Mr.  Powles's  family,  it  is  only  fair  to  note  that  his  own  version 
of  the  story  is  unfortunately  not  available.  Though  the  crisis  of  1826 
involved  him  in  bankruptcy,  it  would  appear  that  he  afterwards  recov- 
ered his  position  and  paid  his  creditors  in  full ;  and  his  family  state  that 
he  maintained  friendly  relations  with  Murray  down  to  the  latter's  death. 
Certainly  Disraeli,  as  his  correspondence  proves,  even  after  he  had 
become  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  remained  in  confidential  com- 
munication with  Mr.  Powles,  whom  he  valued  both  as  a  leading  City 
Conservative  and  an  authority  on  subjects  in  which  the  City  took  a 
special  interest. 


74  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

able  to  him  in  the  story  as  far  as  it  can  be  traced 
to-day.  He  had  shown  amazing  energy,  amazing  self- 
confidence,  and  amazing  power  of  winning  to  his  views 
men  older  and  riper  in  experience  than  himself.  His 
faults  had  been  the  faults  of  youth,  an  over-sanguine 
temperament,  and  immaturity  of  judgment.  In  trusting 
so  implicitly  to  his  alliance  with  the  mining  interests 
in  the  City,  he  had  built  upon  foundations  of  sand, 
but  older  heads  than  his,  before  and  since,  have  been 
guilty  of  a  similar  error.  It  is  not  clear  that  the  con- 
ception of  the  newspaper  was  in  itself  unsound.  Until 
the  last  moment,  in  spite  of  its  appearance  at  a  time  of 
severe  financial  stress,  the  success  of  The  Representative 
was  generally  anticipated,  and  it  was  only  the  feebleness  of 
the  first  few  numbers  that  destroyed  its  chances.  For  this 
Disraeli,  who  had  withdrawn  a  month  before,  can  hardly  be 
held  responsible  ;  if  he  had  remained  the  result  might 
have  been  the  same,  but  it  is  not  impossible  that  his  daemo- 
nic energy  would  have  imparted  to  the  paper  some  of  the 
life  and  vigour  which  it  so  conspicuously  lacked. 

Murray,  it  ought  to  be  said,  seems  to  have  cherished 
a  feeling  that,  apart  from  the  loss  of  his  money,  he  had 
grounds  for  indignation  against  one  who,  in  his  own 
touching  words,  had  received  from  him  '  nothing  but  the 
most  unbounded  confidence  and  parental  attachment ' ; 
but  that  feeling  appears  to  have  been  of  later  origin. 
Whatever  the  circumstances  and  explanation  of  the 
young  Disraeli's  withdrawal  from  The  Representative, 
the  event  at  first  made  not  the  slightest  difference 
to  the  intimate  relations  between  the  Murray  and 
Disraeli  families.  A  few  months  later,  however,  Vivian 
Grey  was  published,  and  the  situation  changed  at  once.1 
Because  the  Disraelis  had  expressed,  or  were  supposed 
to  have  expressed,  their  approbation  of  this  performance, 

1  Mr.  Murray  allows  me  to  cite  him  in  support  of  the  view  here 
taken:  —  'I  believe  the  real  cause  of  my  grandfather's  resentment  was 
not  The  Representative  affair  nor  the  loss  of  his  money,  but  the  feeling 
that  he  had  been  caricatured  and  that  his  confidence  had  been  betrayed 
by  Disraeli  in  Vivian  Grey.  So  my  father  always  told  me.' 


1826]  BREACH   WITH  MURRAY  75 

Murray  dropped  their  acquaintance,  and  his  feelings 
were  shown  by  a  letter  written  later  in  the  year  in  which 
he  speaks  of  Benjamin's  '  outrageous  breach  of  all  con- 
fidence and  of  every  tie  which  binds  man  to  man  in  social 
life  in  the  publication '  of  the  novel.  Vivian  Grrey,  as  we 
shall  see,  is  full  of  boyish  impudence,  but  there  is  nothing 
in  it  that  can  be  even  thought  of  as  giving  justification 
for  language  such  as  this.  Murray  apparently  fancied 
that  he  had  been  satirised  in  the  character  of  the  Marquis, 
though  it  is  not  easy  to  detect  the  slightest  resemblance 
between  them,  As  Sharon  Turner  assured  him,  '  If  the 
author  were  to  swear  to  me  that  he  meant  the  Marquis 
for  you,  I  could  not  believe  him  :  it  is  in  all  points  so 
entirely  unlike.'  The  fact  is,  Murray's  temper,  which 
was  naturally  far  from  perfect,  was  by  the  time  the 
novel  appeared  in  a  state  of  sore  trial.  The  Representative 
was  not  succeeding,  and  Murray  found  himself  committed 
to  a  hopeless  undertaking  and  left  to  bear  alone  the 
burden  of  a  heavy  weekly  loss.  It  was  not  consoling 
to  remember  that  he,  a  shrewd  man  of  business  of  no 
small  experience,  had  been  led  into  the  venture  by  one 
who  was  a  boy  in  years  ;  and  the  boy  had  made  enemies 
who  apparently  did  not  neglect  to  foster  the  prejudice 
against  him.  Not  only  did  Murray  break  off  relations 
with  the  Disraelis,  but  he  seems  to  have  spoken  of  Ben- 
jamin in  terms  which  struck  the  latter  as  '  outrageous ' 
and  'inexplicable.'  Young  Disraeli  replied  with  a  menace 
of  legal  action,  which  he  conveyed  in  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Murray  invoking  her  interference  to  avert  such  a  deplor- 
able necessity  ;  and  Maria  D'Israeli  followed  with  a  vig- 
orous and  sensible  letter  of  protest  addressed  to  Murray 
himself.  4 1  feel  your  disappointment,'  she  writes,  '  and 
can  forgive  your  irritability,  yet  I  must  resent  your  late 
attack  on  Benjamin '  ;  and  she  expresses  the  shrewd 
opinion  that  *  the  failure  of  The  Representative  lay  much 
more  with  the  proprietor  and  his  editor  than  it  ever  did 
with  my  son.'  Murray,  as  she  reminds  him,  had  known 
the  boy  from  his  cradle,  and  knew  his  want  of  resources, 


76  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

and  how  could  he  have  been  deceived  ?  Her  son,  though 
'a  clever  boy,'  was  'no  prodigy,'  but  Murray  'had  formed 
in  his  versatile  imagination  a  perfect  being  and  expected 
impossibilities,  and  found  him  on  trial  a  mere  mortal 
and  a  very  very  young^  man.'  'What  can  you  mean  by 
saying  that  our  son  had  divulged  and  made  public  your 
secrets?  I  must  beg  an  explanation  of  this  enigma.' 
Isaac  D'Israeli  also  was  stirred  to  unwonted  vigour. 

Eventually  it  would  appear  there  was  a  reconciliation 
between  Murray  and  the  parents ;  but  between  Murray 
and  the  son,  though  business  relations  were  resumed, 
friendship  was  at  an  end.  How  deeply  this  estrange- 
ment was  regretted  by  young  Disraeli,  who  beneath  all 
appearance  had  a  truly  affectionate  heart,  is  shown  by  his 
subsequent  efforts  to  bring  it  to  an  end.  When  he  began 
to  make  a  name  as  a  novelist  it  became  one  of  his  dearest 
ambitions  to  have  a  book  published  by  Murray,  and  he 
never  rested  till  this  ambition  was  achieved.  More  than 
a  year  after  his  retirement  from  The  Representative,  when 
he  found  himself  in  possession  of  a  little  money,  the  earn- 
ings no  doubt  of  Vivian  Grrey,  though  his  debts  on  the 
Stock  Exchange  swallowed  up  the  greater  portion,  he 
contrived  to  send  £150  to  Murray  in  payment  for  the 
printing  of  the  mining  pamphlets.  '  I  have  never  been 
able,'  he  explains,  'to  obtain  a  settlement  of  those  accounts 
from  the  parties  originally  responsible,  and  it  has  hitherto 
been  quite  out  of  my  power  to  exempt  myself  from  the 
liability,  which,  I  have  ever  been  conscious,  on  their 
incompetency,  resulted  from  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  the  case  to  myself.' l  Murray's  heart,  however, 
remained  unsoftened.  Disraeli  seems  to  have  thought, 
and  perhaps  not  without  reason,  that  Lockhart's  in- 
fluence was  used  against  him ;  at  all  events,  from  this 
time  onwards  we  find  him,  whenever  occasion  offers, 
showing  a  hearty  dislike  for  Lockhart,  who  appears  in- 
deed from  his  side  to  have  reciprocated  the  feeling  with 
no  less  cordiality.2 

1  Smiles,  II.,  p.  264. 

2  See  for  instance  Lockhart's  remarks  on  Coningsby,  Lang,  II. ,  p.  199. 


1825]  DISRAELI   AND   SIR   WALTER  77 

Among  Disraeli's  papers  there  is  a  reminiscence,  written 
nearly  forty  years  later,  of  his  early  visits  to  Scotland 
and  his  intercourse  with  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

When  I  was  quite  a  youth  (1825)  I  was  travelling  in  Scot- 
land, and  my  father  gave  me  a  letter  to  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
I  visited  him  at  Abbotsford.  I  remember  him  quite  well.  A 
kind,  but  rather  stately,  person :  with  his  pile  of  forehead, 
sagacious  eye,  white  hair  and  green  shooting  coat.  He  was 
extremely  hospitable ;  and  after  dinner,  with  no  lack  of  claret, 
the  quaighs  and  whisky  were  brought  in.  I  have  seen  him 
sitting  in  his  armchair,  in  his  beautiful  library,  which  was  the 
chief  rendezvous  of  the  house,  and  in  which  we  met  in  the 
evening,  with  half  a  dozen  terriers  about  him:  in  his  lap, 
on  his  shoulders,  at  his  feet.  'These,'  he  said  to  me  'are 
Dandie  Dinmont's  breed.'  They  were  all  called  Mustard  and 
Pepper,  according  to  their  color  and  their  age.  He  would 
read  aloud  in  the  evening,  or  his  daughter,  an  interesting  girl, 
Anne  Scott,  would  sing  some  ballad  on  the  harp.  He  liked 
to  tell  a  story  of  some  Scotch  chief,  sometimes  of  some  Scotch 
lawyer. 

I  was  at  Abbotsford  again  later  in  the  year  for  a  day.  The 
Edinburgh  Review  had  just  arrived.  Mr.  Lockhart,  then 
about  thirty  or  so,  but  a  very  experienced  literary  man,  I 
remember  saying,  'Well,  they  may  say  what  they  like,  but 
no  man  can  write  like  Jeffrey  on  poetry.  The  article  on  Milton 
in  the  new  number  is  the  finest  thing  we  have  had  for  years.' 
As  I  came  down  to  dinner,  Sir  Walter  was  walking  up  and 
down  the  hall  with  a  very  big,  stout,  florid  man,  apparently 
in  earnest  conversation.  I  was  introduced  to  him  before 
dinner  as  Mr.  Constable  —  the  famous  publisher  of  the  Edin- 
burgh Review  and  the  Waver]  ?y  Novels,  the  authorship  of 
them  not  then  acknowledged;  at  least,  not  formally.  It 
struck  me,  that  I  had  never  met  before  such  an  ostentatious 
man,  or  one  whose  conversation  was  so  braggart.  One  would 
think  that  he  had  written  the  Waverley  Novels  himself,  and 
certainly  that  Abbotsford  belonged  to  him.  However,  he 
seemed  to  worship  Scott,  and  to  express  his  adoration.  His 
carriage  was  announced,  while  he  was  at  dinner,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  go,  as  he  had  to  return  to  Edinburgh  to  transact 
some  business,  and  then  go  up  to  London  by  the  morrow's  mail, 
by  which  also  I  was  to  return. 

So  we  met  again,  and  I  sate  opposite  him.  He  put  a  rich 
velvet  cap  with  a  broad  gold  band  on  his  head,  and  looked 
like  a  great  heraldic  lion  crowned.  We  had  two  fellow 
passengers,  I  am  sure,  but  I  don't  recollect  anything  about 


78  FINANCE   AND  JOURNALISM  [CHAP,  v 

them.  But  I  never  shall  forget  Constable's  conversation. 
It  was  only  about  Abbotsford  and  the  Waverley  Novels. 
He  informed  me,  that  he  intended  to  build  a  new  wing  to 
Abbotsford  next  year,  and  you  would  have  supposed  from 
what  he  said  that  Sir  Walter  had  only  commenced  developing 
a  new  Eldorado.  I  never  in  my  life  met  such  a  braggart, 
or  a  man  so  full  of  self-importance.  Something  had  gone 
wrong  on  the  journey;  the  guard  or  the  coachman  had 
displeased.  He  went  into  an  ecstasy  of  pompous  passion. 
'  Do  you  know  who  I  am,  man  ?  I  am  Archibald  Constable/ 
&c.,  &c.,  &c.  This  man  was  on  the  point  of  a  most  fatal 
and  shattering  bankruptcy;  had  gone  up  to  town  with  some 
desperate  resolve;  and  in  less  than  a  week  the  crash  came. 
When  he  had  exhausted  Abbotsford  and  the  Waverley 
Novels,  he  began  bragging  about  the  Edinburgh  Review :  and 
dilated  much  on  an  article  on  Milton.  I,  like  a  youth,  repeat- 
ing at  second-hand,  ventured  to  observe,  that  no  one  wrote  on 
poetry  like  Jeffrey.  I  copied  this  from  Lockhart,  but  I  flatter 
myself,  that  if  I  had  read  the  article,  I  should  not  have  made 
the  observation ;  for  it  always  afterwards  gave  me  a  very  low 
opinion  of  Lockhart's  literary  discrimination.  No  man  with  a 
good  nose  could  have  for  an  instant  supposed  that  Jeffrey  had 
written  the  article  in  question.  Constable  informed  me,  that 
it  was  not  by  Jeffrey  but  that  it  was  a  secret :  but  so  little  was 
his  power  of  reserve  and  reticence,  or  so  great  the  excitement 
under  which  he  then  laboured,  that  before  long  I  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  worming  out  from  him,  that  it  was  by  a  young  law- 
yer of  the  name  of  Macaulay,  from  whom  he  expected  great 
things.  Therefore,  I  arrived  in  London  with  a  sort  of  literary 
secret. 


CHAPTER  VI 

VIVIAN  GREY 

1826 

Disraeli  was  never  easily  discouraged.  His  twenty- 
first  birthday,  which  he  celebrated  on  the  21st  of 
December,  a  few  days  after  the  crash  in  the  City,  must 
have  been  gloomy  enough ;  but,  foiled  in  his  practical 
ambition,  he  turned  again  to  literature  and  within  four 
months  had  produced  a  book  which  became  the  talk 
of  London  and  won  for  him  celebrity  or  notoriety  in  a 
measure  that  few  secure  when  they  have  barely  crossed 
the  threshold  of  manhood. 

In  the  previous  year  a  novel  called  Tremaine  had 
appeared  which  was  much  read  and  talked  about  at  the 
time,  though  it  is  now  forgotten.  It  was  a  '  novel  of  fash- 
ionable life '  and  its  popularity  had  given  a  certain  vogue 
to  this  form  of  literature.  The  author,  Robert  Ward, 
better  known  by  his  later  name  of  Plumer  Ward,  was  a 
person  of  some  prominence  in  Parliament  and  society  ; 
but  his  book  was  published  anonymously,  and  owed  not  a 
little  of  its  success  to  the  mystery  in  which  its  authorship 
was  for  some  time  carefully  wrapt.  As  it  happened,  the 
Disraeli  family  rented  Hyde  House,  Ward's  residence  near 
Amersham,  for  some  months  in  the  autumn  of  1825, 
and  here  Disraeli  always  said  he  wrote  Vivian  Grrey,  tak- 
ing the  idea  from  Tremaine  and  completing  the  book 
before  he  was  twenty-one.  The  link  between  the  Dis- 
raelis and  Ward  was  Ward's  solicitor,  Austen,  who,  living 

79 


60  VIVIAN   GREY  [CHAP,  vi 

close  by  in  Guilford  Street,  had  formed  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  family  in  Bloomsbury  Square.  It  was 
Austen  who,  according  to  the  very  doubtful  story, 
had  found  Benjamin  reading  Chaucer  in  chambers, 
and  decided  that  he  would  never  make  a  lawyer  ; 
and  it  was  through  Austen  that  Hyde  House  was 
taken  by  the  Disraelis.  Austen,  as  Ward's  agent, 
had  made  the  arrangements  for  the  publication  of 
Tremaine,  and  his  young  and  clever  wife  was  also 
in  Ward's  confidence,  and  had  played  a  part  in  the 
negotiations.  Aware,  no  doubt,  of  her  relations  with 
Colburn  the  publisher,  Disraeli,  who  had  no  longer 
John  Murray  to  apply  to,  turned  to  her  for  advice  and 
assistance  when  his  own  novel  was  becoming  ripe  for 
publication.  Sara  Austen  was  well  fitted  to  be  the 
Egeria  of  a  precocious  youth  of  genius.  'She  was  a 
woman,'  as  her  nephew  Sir  Henry  Layard  describes  her, 
'  of  more  than  ordinary  talent  and  of  more  than  ordinary 
beauty,  very  ambitious  of  shining  in  society  and  fond 
of  flattery  and  admiration.  Her  accomplishments  were 
many  and  various.  She  was  a  clever  musician,  a  skilful 
artist,  a  good  judge  and  critic  of  literary  merit,  and  an 
excellent  letter-writer.  Had  she  chosen  to  be  an  author- 
ess she  would  probably  have  been  a  successful  one.'1 
Disraeli's  earlier  letters  to  her  have  unfortunately  per- 
ished, but  enough  remain  of  Mrs.  Austen's  to  help  to 
elucidate  our  story. 

From  Mrs.  Austen. 

Saturday  Morning,  25th  [Feb.*  1826]. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, 

Patience  is  not  one  of  my  virtues,  as  I  fear  you  will 
discover  to  your  cost,  and  I  could  just  as  easily  sit  without 
speaking  till  Tuesday  as  wait  till  then  to  give  you  my  opinion 

1  Layard's  Autobiography,  I.  p.  46. 

2  March  25  was  also  a  Saturday,  but  as  the  book  was  announced 
for  publication  at    the  beginning  of  April  the  earlier  date  must    be 
chosen. 


1826]  MRS.   AUSTEN  81 

of  your  MS.  I  am  quite  delighted  with  it,  and  enter  into 
the  spirit  of  the  book  entirely.  I  have  now  gone  through  it 
twice,  and  the  more  I  read  the  better  I  am  pleased.  I  never 
make  any  professions,  but  if  you  can  do  no  better  take  me 
as  an  ally  upon  trust:  at  least  I  will  be  faithful  to  your 
secret  and  can  undertake  to  manage  it  exactly  in  accordance 
to  your  wishes  in  Burlington  Street  [Colburn's  offices]. 
Trouble  is  an  odious  word  which  shall  be  henceforth  banished 
our  vocabulary.  I  only  long  to  receive  my  credentials,  for 
indeed  you  have  no  time  to  lose  on  account  of  a  very 
extraordinary  coincidence,1  which  I  dare  not  explain  on 
paper,  but  of  which  you  shall  know  enough  the  first  time  we 
meet  to  prove  the  advantage  of  its  going  to  press  immediately. 
The  moment  I  have  your  permission  and  instructions  I  will 
write  to  C[olburn].  Pray  send  me  the  remainder  of  your 
MS.  as  soon  as  possible,  for  I  am  in  a  state  of  complete  excita- 
tion on  the  subject. 1  forget  Mr.  D'I's  Christian  initial  so 

must  direct '  Junior.' 2 

Your  sincere  friend  and  ally 

S.A. 

At  Mrs.  Austen's  instance  Colburn  accepted  the  novel 
for  publication,  though  the  secret  of  the  authorship  was 
rigorously  withheld  from  him,  as  even  for  a  time  from 
Disraeli's  own  family.  That  the  mystification  might  be 
complete,  Mrs.  Austen  copied  the  whole  of  the  manuscript 
in  her  own  hand  and  her  friends  believed  that  she  had 
helped  to  write  the  story ;  but  her  letters  at  the  time 
confirm  the  statement  she  made  more  than  half  a 
century  later :  '  She  had  given  him  advice  and  had 
occasionally  induced  him  to  suppress  or  modify  pas- 
sages which  she  considered  objectionable  in  taste,  but 

1  The  reference    is   without   doubt   to  the  approaching    appearance 
of  Ward's  second  novel  De   Fere. 

2  Sir  Henry  Layard,   writing  half  a  century  later  of  events  which 
happened  when  he  was  a  child,  has,  as  this  letter  and   others  show, 
antedated    the    intimacy  between  the  Austens  and   Disraeli,    and  has 
perhaps  somewhat  exaggerated  the  part  they  played  in  his  life.      The 
Chaucer  story  seems  to  me  of  doubtful  authenticity,  and  not  less  so  an- 
other story  which  is  often  quoted  on  Sir  Henry  Layard' s  authority  of 
his  accompanying  his  aunt  in  a  call  on  the  Disraelis  and  finding  '  Ben ' 
in  the  middle  of  a  boxing  lesson. 

VOL.    I  —  G 


82  VIVIAN   GREY  [CHAP,  vi 

nothing  more.' 1  Why  Disraeli  should  have  taken 
so  much  trouble  to  preserve  the  anonymity  of  the 
book,  or  whether  he  had  any  more  solid  reasons  than  a 
native  love  of  mystery  and  a  desire  to  follow  the  fashion 
which  Scott  had  established  and  to  which  lesser  lights 
like  Plumer  Ward  had  conformed,  we  cannot  be  sure ; 
but  the  publisher  was  so  far  from  disliking  the  mystery 
thus  created  that  he  skilfully  availed  himself  of  it  for 
purposes  of  his  own.  A  master  of  the  art  of  advertising, 
Colburn  controlled,  or  was  in  a  position  to  influence, 
•several  of  the  best-known  organs  of  literary  opinion ; 
and  presently  in  the  daily  journals  and  in  weekly  and 
monthly  periodicals  hints  began  to  be  given  of  the 
approaching  appearance  of  a  new  society  novel  by  an 
author  who  for  obvious  reasons  desired  to  remain 
anonymous  and  in  whose  pages  all  the  leading  people 
of  the  day  were  to  appear  under  thin  disguises.  The 
book  was  to  be  *  extremely  satirical,'  and  was  to  contain 
'portraits  of  living  characters,  sufficient  to  constitute 
a  National  Gallery';  it  was  to  be  '  a  sort  of  Don  Juan 
in  prose,'  and  the  hero  was  'to  become  acquainted  with 
every  literary  and  fashionable  character  in  existence.' 
By  arts  such  as  these  curiosity  was  aroused  and 
expectation  created,  and  when  towards  the  end  of  April 
Vivian  Grrey  appeared  in  two  octavo  volumes  its  success 
was  at  once  assured.  Long  reviews  were  published  in 
many  of  the  leading  newspapers  and  periodicals ;  society 
amused  itself  by  endeavouring  to  identify  the  originals 
of  the  characters ;  and  at  the  same  time  speculation, 
diligently  fomented  by  the  ingenious  Colburn,  raged  as 
to  the  identity  of  the  author.  From  their  different  points 
of  view  both  publisher  and  author  had  every  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  success  they  had  achieved. 

Though  we  may  safely  assume  that  Disraeli  was  not 
averse  from  the  prospect  of  notoriety,  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  he  had  any  real  responsibility  for  the  puffing 

1  Layard,  I,  p.  46. 


1826]  COLBURN'S  PUFFERY  83 

arts  of  Colburn.  He  only  received  £200  for  the  novel,1 
and  he  was  not  even  in  direct  communication  with  his 
publisher ;  but  in  the  end  he  had  to  pay  the  penalty  for 
Colburn's  delinquencies  as  well  as  for  his  own.  As  long 
as  it  was  supposed  that  Vivian  Grey  was  the  work  of  a 
man  of  high  position  the  Press,  where  it  did  not  praise, 
was  silent ;  but  in  spite  of  Colburn's  attempts  to  connect 
well-known  names  with  the  authorship,  or  at  least  to 
encourage  the  belief  that  the  author  was  a  '  man  of 
fashion,'  some  of  the  critics  were  from  the  first  suspicious. 
Jerdan,  of  the  Literary  Gazette,  for  instance,  was  acute 
enough  to  observe  that  'the  class  of  the  author  was  a 
little  betrayed  by  his  frequent  recurrence  to  topics  about 
which  the  mere  man  of  fashion  knows  nothing  and  cares 
less,'  and  that  the  book  'somewhat  smacked  of  the 
literary  writer ';  and  presently  —  it  would  seem  through 
Jerdan,  who  had  somehow  ferreted  out  the  secret,  and 
in  spite  of  the  greatest  exertions  on  the  part  of  Mrs. 
Austen  to  '  blind '  all  concerned  —  the  truth  leaked  out. 
When  it  was  realised  that  the  author  of  Vivian  G-rey 
was  only  an  audacious  boy,  Colburn's  enemies  abandoned 
their  reserve.  *  Christopher  North '  in  Blackwood a 
denounced  'the  shameful  and  shameless  puffery'  by 
which  the  sale  of  the  book  had  been  secured,  and 
dismissed  it  as  'a  paltry  catchpenny '  by  '  an  obscure 
person  for  whom  nobody  cares  a  straw.'  Another 
writer,  in  an  article  entitled  'The  New  Unknown,' 
revealed  the  author's  identity  by  name,  branded  him  as 
having  acquired  popularity  'by  the  meanest  and  most 
revolting  artifices  and  the  total  disregard  of  all  honourable 
feeling';  ridiculed  'his  most  ludicrous  affectation  of 
good  breeding';  and  even  accused  Disraeli  and  Mrs. 
Austen  of  having  tricked  Colburn  into  paying  a  high 
price  for  the  novel  by  leading  him  to  believe  that  it  was 

1  That  is  to  say  for  the  novel  as  it  originally  appeared.    For  the 
Second  Part,  published  in  the  following  year,  he  received  £500  in  addi- 
tion. 

2  July,  1826,  p.  98. 


84  VIVIAN  GREY  [CHAP,  vi 

from  the  pen  of  Plainer  Ward.1  With  all  his  assurance 
Disraeli  was  by  nature  sensitive,  and  this  was  his  first 
taste  of  the  malignant  abuse  which  was  to  be  showered 
upon  him  all  through  life  and  against  which  experience 
was  to  make  him  proof.  There  is  an  obvious  reminiscence 
of  the  effect  upon  the  victim's  mind  in  the  well  known 
passage  in  which  Contarini  Fleming  describes  his  sensa- 
tions after  reading  the  review  of  his  novel  Manstein  :  — 

With  what  horror,  with  what  supreme,  appalling  astonish- 
ment, did  I  find  myself  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  a  subject 
of  the  most  ruthless,  the  most  malignant,  and  the  most  adroit 
ridicule.  I  was  scarified.  I  was  scalped.  .  .  .  The  criti- 
cism fell  from  my  hand,  a  film  floated  over  my  vision ;  my 
knees  trembled.  I  felt  that  sickness  of  heart  that  we  experi- 
ence in  our  first  serious  scrape.  I  was  ridiculous,  it  was  time 
to  die. 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  critics,  perhaps  to  some  extent 
because  of  their  violence  and  acerbity,  which  revived  the 
interest  of  the  public  as  it  began  to  flag,  Vivian  drey 
survived.  'There  was  little  art  in  my  creation,'  says 
Contarini  of  an  early  composition,  'but  there  was  much 
vitality,'  and  the  description  exactly  fits  the  first  part 

1  Literary  Magnet,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  1  and  129.  From  the  same  writer  the 
legends  took  their  origin  that  Disraeli  had  been  the  first  editor  of  The 
Representative  and  responsible  for  its  failure  ;  and  that  he  had  also  been 
editor  of  The  Star  Chamber,  a  weekly  publication  which  appeared  for  a 
couple  of  months  in  the  spring  of  1826,  and  author  of  the  '  Dunciad  of 
To-day,'  a  satirical  poem  which  was  printed  in  The  Star  Chamber  and 
provoked  much  resentment.  The  statement  about  The  Representative, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  not  true.  As  for  The  Star  Chamber,  it  was  founded 
by  a  certain  Peter  Hall,  a  friend  of  Meredith's  at  Brasenose,  who,  through 
Meredith,  had  become  acquainted  with  Disraeli.  Disraeli  contributed 
some  fables  with  a  political  application  under  the  title  of  '  The  Modern 
.flSsop,'  at  least  one  review,  and  perhaps  other  matter.  But  in  later  life 
he  expressly  denied  {The  Times,  Nov.  3,  1871 ;  Leisure  Hour,  Nov.  4, 
1871)  having  been  editor,  if  indeed  there  ever  was  an  editor  ;  and  in  the 
second  part  of  Vivian  Grey  (Bk.  V.  ch.  1)  he  declared,  with  obvious 
reference  to  the  '  Dunciad,'  that  he  never  wrote  a  single  line  '  of  the 
various  satires  in  verse '  that  had  been  attributed  to  him,  and  the  internal 
evidence  is  in  complete  agreement  with  this  repudiation. 


1826]  SUCCESS   OF   THE   NOVEL  85 

of  Vivian  G-rey.  The  novel  owed  its  success  no  doubt 
in  the  first  instance  to  Colburn's  ingenious  puffing,  but 
it  had  sufficient  merit  of  its  own  to  reward  the  attention 
that  had  been  artificially  drawn  to  it.  By  the  beginning 
of  July  a  second  edition  had  been  called  for,  and  a  third, 
with  certain  modifications,  was  issued  in  the  following 
year.  Within  three  years  of  its  first  appearance  Disraeli 
had  come  to  reckon  Vivian  G-rey  among  his  '  juvenile 
indiscretions,' 1  and  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  as  he  wrote 
in  1853,  he  refused  to  reprint  it ;  but  in  that  year,  as  the 
book  had  '  baffled  even  the  efforts  of  its  creator  to  suppress 
it,'  he  submitted  it  to  a  severe  expurgation  and  gave  it  a 
place  in  a  collected  edition  of  his  works.  He  was  careful, 
however,  in  a  preface,  to  disarm  the  critics  by  anticipating 
their  harshest  censure. 

Books  written  by  boys,  which  pretend  to  give  a  picture  of 
manners  and  to  deal  in  knowledge  of  human  nature,  must 
necessarily  be  founded  on  affectation.  They  can  be,  at  the 
best,  but  the  results  of  imagination,  acting  upon  knowledge 
not  acquired  by  experience.  Of  such  circumstances  exaggera- 
tion is  a  necessary  consequence,  and  false  taste  accompanies 
exaggeration.  .  .  .  Such  productions  should  be  exempt 
from  criticism,  and  should  be  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  literary 
lusus. 

In  the  face  of  this  frank  avowal,  it  would  be  absurd  to 
embark  on  any  pedantic  inquiry  into  the  worth  of  the 
book  as  a  permanent  contribution  to  literature.  The 
question  that  is  really  interesting  is  its  biographical 
value  —  what  light,  if  any,  does  it  throw  on  the  developing 
mind  and  character  of  the  author  ?  The  scheme  of  the 
novel  is  very  simple.  A  couple  of  lines  from  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor  — 

*  Why,  then  the  world's  mine  oyster, 
Which  I  with  sword  will  open,' 

appear  as  a  motto  on  the  title  page.  Vivian  Grey,  the 
clever  and  precocious  son  of  a  distinguished  man  of 
letters,  after  a  stormy  career  at  school  and  a  period  of 

1  Life  of  Bulwer  Lytton,  II.,  p.  316. 


86  VIVIAN   GREY  [CHAP,  vi 

hard  study  thereafter  looks  about  at  the  age  of  twenty  for 
the  means  to  satisfy  his  already  inordinate  ambition. 
Vivian's  sword  is  his  wit,  and 

at  this  moment  how  many  a  powerful  noble  wants  only  wit 
to  be  a  Minister,  and  what  wants  Vivian  Grey  to  attain  the 
same  end  ?  That  noble's  influence.  .  .  .  Supposing  I  am 
in  contact  with  this  magnifico,  am  I  prepared  ?  Now  let  me 
probe  my  very  soul.  Does  my  cheek  blanch  ?  I  have  the 
mind  for  the  conception ;  and  I  can  perform  right  skilfully 
upon  the  most  splendid  of  musical  instruments  —  the  human 
voice  —  to  make  those  conceptions  beloved  by  others.  There 
wants  but  one  thing  more  —  courage,  pure,  perfect  courage ;  — 
and  does  Vivian  Grey  know  fear  ? 

He  finds  his  magnifico  in  the  Marquis  of  Carabas,  a 
weak  but  vain  and  ambitious  nobleman  whom  he  meets  at 
his  father's  table.  Vivian  fascinates  him  by  his  ready 
wit,  plays  upon  his  vanity,  is  invited  to  his  country  house, 
Chateau  Desir,  and  there  proceeds  to  organise  a  Carabas 
party  out  of  the  friends  of  the  Marquis,  prominent  among 
whom,  strange  to  say,  is  a  Lord  Beaconsfield  —  'a  very 
worthy  gentleman,  but  between  ourselves,  a  damned 
fool.'  The  new  party  will  require  a  leader  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  as  Vivian  with  calculated  modesty 
declines  the  task  he  is  at  his  own  suggestion  despatched 
to  Wales  to  win  over  by  his  diplomacy  a  certain  Cleveland, 
a  young  and  once  promising  politician  who  had  been 
betrayed  by  the  Marquis  and  had  retired  from  politics 
in  disgust.  The  mission  is  successful,  and  Vivian  carries 
Cleveland  back  with  him  to  Chateau  Desir.  Now, 
however,  a  woman  who  has  long  been  on  the  scene,  but 
whose  place  in  the  scheme  of  the  novel  has  hitherto 
seemed  uncertain,  begins  to  play  a  more  definite  part. 
Either  from  jealousy  or  from  sheer  love  of  mischief,  she 
poisons  the  mind  of  the  Marquis  against  Vivian  Grey, 
and  the  catastrophe  speedily  comes.  Dissension  and 
treachery  invade  the  ranks  of  the  plotters,  the  house 
of  cards  that  has  been  so  laboriously  constructed  suddenly 
collapses,  Cleveland  is  killed  in  a  duel  by  Vivian  Grey, 


1826]  IS   THE   HERO   DISRAELI?  87 

and  the  hero  retires  to  Germany  discomfited  in  his  ambi- 
tion and  a  prey  to  bitter  remorse. 

Now  that  there  is  a  large  element  of  autobiography  in 
the  external  setting  of  this  fantastic  story  is  soon  apparent. 
Horace  Grey  is  clearly  a  picture  of  Isaac  D'Israeli ; 
Vivian  Grey's  early  years  are,  as  has  already  been  seen, 
described  in  great  part  from  the  author's  own  experience  ; 
the  journey  to  Wales  to  secure  Cleveland's  adhesion  to 
the  Carabas  party  is  obviously  suggested  by  Disraeli's 
own  mission  to  Scotland  to  enlist  the  services  of  Lockhart 
for  TJie  Representative  ;  and  we  can  trace  in  the  book  the 
influence  of  nearly  every  important  fact  of  which  we  have 
knowledge  in  the  author's  previous  history  —  his  father's 
library,  his  conversations  with  literary  men  at  Murray's, 
his  tour  in  Germany,  his  intercourse  with  financial  mag- 
nates in  the  City.  All  this  is  natural  :  a  man  can  only 
write  of  what  he  knows,  and  at  twenty-one  his  experience 
is  so  limited  that  his  range  of  choice  is  narrow.  But  a 
question  of  greater  interest  and  difficulty  remains.  Is 
Vivian  Grey's  character  a  reflexion  of  the  author's  own  ? 
Is  his  view  of  life  the  view  which  Benjamin  Disraeli  had 
deliberately  adopted  on  the  threshold  of  manhood  ? 
Are  his  ideals  and  ambitions  Disraeli's  youthful  ideals 
and  ambitions,  and  his  adventures  in  some  degree  an 
anticipation  of  Disraeli's  own  career  ?  It  has  generally 
been  assumed  that  these  things  are  so,  and  Disraeli's 
friends,  accepting  the  assumption,  have  offered  the  best 
apology  they  could,  while  his  enemies  have  exultantly 
pointed  to  the  moral.  But  another  theory  is  possible. 
A  recent  critic,1  while  admitting,  or  rather  insisting  on, 
the  autobiographic  significance  of  the  book,  has  argued 
with  some  plausibility  that  the  story  is  not  an  anticipa- 
tion, but  a  retrospect ;  that  it  embodies  not  an  ideal,  but 
a  confession  and  a  warning  ;  that  the  author  is  drawing 
from  his  own  past  experience  in  a  very  literal  sense,  and 
is  transposing  into  the  form  of  fiction  the  story  of  The 
Representative  and  the  shipwreck  of  his  own  precocious 
ambitions. 

1  Mr.  Lucien  Wolf  in  his  edition  of  Vivian  Grey. 


88  VIVIAN   GREY  [CHAP.VI 

As  so  often  happens,  Disraeli  himself  can  be 
quoted  in  support  of  either  theory.  In  a  reply  he 
made  to  his  critics  in  the  second  part  of  the  novel,  he 
anxiously  explained  that  he  had  been  conscious  from 
the  beginning  of  the  moral  obliquity  of  his  hero. 

I  conceived  the  character  of  a  youth  of  great  talents 
whose  mind  had  been  corrupted,  as  the  minds  of  many  of 
our  youth  have  been,  by  the  artificial  age  in  which  he 
lived.  ...  In  his  whole  career  he  was  to  be  pitied; 
but  for  his  whole  career  he  was  not  to  be  less  punished. 
When  I  sketched  the  feelings  of  his  early  boyhood, 
as  the  novelist,  I  had  already  foreseen  the  results  to  which 
those  feelings  were  to  lead  ;  and  had  in  store  for  the  fictitious 
character  the  punishment  which  he  endured.1 

This  statement  appears  explicit  enough  ;  but  it  was 
written  a  year  later  when  Disraeli  was  suffering  from  ill- 
health  and  the  depression  that  attends  it,  and  when  for  the 
moment  he  had  lost  his  native  buoyancy  and  self-confidence; 
and  if  that  be  remembered,  the  explanation  ceases  to  carry 
conviction.  To  no  reader  of  the  earlier  chapters  of 
Vivian  Grrey  would  it  ever  occur  that  the  purpose  of 
the  novel  is  to  unfold  the  moral  lesson  of  the  consequences 
to  which  ambition  uncontrolled  by  moral  principle  must 
inevitably  lead.  The  author's  sympathies  are  obviously 
with  his  hero,  and  the  reader's  sympathies,  whether  he 
will  or  not,  are  enlisted  on  the  same  side.  The  author 
no  less  than  the  reader  may  be  intellectually  aware  of 
the  hero's  imperfections,  but  even  when  the  action  is 
well  advanced  there  are  few  signs  of  moral  reprobation. 
The  catastrophe  when  it  comes  is  a  mere  matter  of 
machinery,  and  hardly  affects  the  ethos  of  the  story  ; 
it  comes  only,  one  feels,  because  the  story  had  to  be 
ended  somehow,  and  a  satisfactory  ending  was  hardly  to 
be  found.  But  we  have  testimony  from  Disraeli  himself 
which  is  more  convincing  than  an  apology  framed  while 
he  was  still  smarting  from  the  wounds  inflicted  by  the 
critics.  Seven  years  later  he  wrote  in  a  diary  which 
till  after  his  death  was  probably  never  seen  by  any  eyes 
but  his  own  :  *  Poetry  is  the  safety  valve  of  my  passions 

i  Vivian  Grey,  Bk.  V.,  Ch.  1. 


1826]  DUALITY  OF  THE  NOVEL  89 

—  but  I  wish  to  act  what  I  write.  My  works  are  the 
embodification  of  my  feelings.  In  Vivian  G-rey  I  have 
portrayed  my  active  and  real  ambition.'  Here  again 
we  might  seem  to  have  a  final  settlement  of  the  matter ; 
but  even  this  declaration  must  not  be  pressed  too  far. 
Disraeli,  with  his  infinitely  subtle  and  elusive  mind  and 
character,  is  a  perpetual  snare  to  the  unwary  who  place 
too  literal  a  construction  upon  his  isolated  words  and 
actions.  If  it  is  ridiculous  on  the  one  hand  to  pretend 
that  l^ivian  G-rey  is  a  confession  written  in  a  fit  of 
penitence  and  remorse,  it  would  be  no  less  ridiculous  on 
the  other  to  pretend  that  Disraeli  was  unconscious  of 
or  indifferent  to  the  moral  obliquity  of  his  hero,  or  that 
he  deliberately  set  him  up  as  an  example  which  he 
afterwards  meant  to  follow. 

Though  neither  of  the  rival  theories  is  wholly  satis- 
factory, neither  is  wholly  false,  and  it  is  not  impossible 
to  effect  a  harmony  between  them.  Disraeli,  as  has 
been  seen,  used  in  later  life  to  declare  that  he  wrote 
Vivian  G-rey  at  Plumer  Ward's  house,  where  his  family 
spent  the  autumn  of  1825.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
in  the  whirl  of  those  crowded  months  he  could  have 
found  the  leisure  necessary  for  the  completion  of  such  a 
task  ;  and  Mrs.  Austen's  letters  seem  to  imply  that  a 
good  deal  of  work  was  done  on  Vivian  G-rey  after  the 
secret  had  been  confided  to  her  in  the  following  spring. 
But  it  is  highly  probable  that  a  beginning  had  been 
made  before,  either  at  Hyde  House  in  the  month  preceding 
Disraeli's  first  visit  to  Abbotsford,  or  even  at  an  earlier 
date ;  and  that  the  story  was  picked  up  again  after 
the  catastrophe  of  The  Representative.  No  one  reading 
Vivian  G-rey,  especially  if  he  read  it  in  the  original  edition, 
can  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  contrast  between  the  first 
volume  and  the  second.  All  the  merit  of  the  book  lies 
in  the  first  volume.1  In  the  earlier  chapters  especially 
we  find  the  author  writing  from  a  genuine  artistic 
impulse  and  with  a  joyous  interest  in  his  subject  ;  and 

1  Containing  the  first  two  books  of  the  ordinary  editions. 


90  VIVIAN  GREY  [CHAP,  vi 

his  story  has  all  the  coherence  that  comes  from  a  strong 
and  living  conception  of  the  character  of  the  hero.  The 
subordinate  actors  duly  play  their  parts,  though  Mrs. 
Felix  Lorraine  is  somewhat  of  an  enigma,  and  is  evi- 
dently beyond  the  powers  of  a  boy  of  twenty-one.  The 
style  is  light  and  vivacious,  full  of  sparkle  and  epigram  ; 
and,  though  faults  of  taste  are  numerous,  this  first  volume 
on  the  whole  is  a  most  amusing  blend  of  cleverness  and 
impudence.  Even  the  flippancy  and  cynicism  are  too 
obviously  boyish  affectations  to  cause  real  offence.  If  we 
remember  that  Vivian  Grrey  is  only  a  work  of  fiction,  and  a 
work  of  fiction  with  a  large  element  of  caricature  and  exag- 
geration, and  if  we  make  allowance  also  for  that  subtle 
Disraelian  irony  which  pervades  all  the  novels,  we  may 
fairly  say  that  in  the  first  volume  the  hero  is  Disraeli 
himself;  though  just  for  that  reason  the  work  ought 
to  have  remained  a  fragment,  as  without  a  further  de- 
velopment of  the  author's  personality  the  story  of  the 
hero's  adventures  could  not  be  carried  on  in  conform- 
ity with  the  original  conception. 

The  second  volume  opens  with  the  mission  to  Wales, 
which  bears  so  close  a  resemblance  in  detail  to  Disraeli's 
own  mission  to  Scotland  that  it  could  hardly  have  been 
written  except  in  the  light  of  that  experience  ;  but  signs 
of  haste  and  discord  at  once  begin  to  be  apparent,  and 
the  remainder  of  the  novel  is  a  continuous  descent. 
Both  the  story  and  the  characters  become  incoherent, 
whole  chapters  of  irrelevant  padding  are  introduced, 
and  the  author's  main  preoccupation  now  appears  to 
be  to  stretch  his  story  out  to  a  fairly  respectable  length 
and  then  with  the  least  possible  trouble  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  plot  to  bring  it  to  some  sort  of  conclusion. 
Presently  we  lapse  into  vulgar  and  hideous  melodrama. 
Mrs.  Felix  Lorraine,  who  before  was  an  enigma,  now 
becomes  a  monster,  and,  monster  as  she  is,  the  hero  in 
his  revenge  upon  her  shows  himself  a  fiend.  'As  hot 
and  hurried  a  sketch  as  ever  yet  was  penned,'  is  Disraeli's 
own  description  of  the  first  part  of  the  novel  in  his 


1826]  INFERIORITY  OF  SECOND  VOLUME  91 

apology  a  year  later,  and  he  probably  had  in  mind  the 
second  volume  especially  and  the  conditions  under  which 
it  was  written.  It  is  just  such  work  as  we  might  expect 
from  a  boy  without  experience  who,  in  the  reaction 
after  a  period  of  unnatural  tension  ending  in  great 
misfortune,  is  endeavouring  in  headlong  haste  to  bring 
an  earlier  literary  sketch  to  some  sort  of  conclusion. 
We  now  instinctively  feel  that  the  artistic  impulse  has 
spent  itself,  that  the  author  is  no  longer  inspired  by 
genuine  love  of  his  subject,  and  that  we  are  dealing  with 
a  mere  piece  of  crude  and  hasty  book-making.  There  is 
no  definite  artistic  motive,  not  even  the  motive  of  con- 
trition, though  the  treatment  has  taken  a  colour  from  the 
author's  own  misfortunes ;  and  certainly  the  hero  now 
is  as  far  from  reflecting  Disraeli's  ideals  and  ambitions 
as  this  second  volume  is  from  exhibiting  his  literary 
power. 

So  much  on  the  question  as  to  the  sense  in  which 
Vivian  Grey  is  a  portrait  of  Disraeli  himself;  on  the 
larger  question  as  to  whether  the  novel  as  a  whole  is 
a  gallery  of  portraits  from  living  originals  something 
remains  to  be  said.  Elaborate  keys  were  published  at 
the  time,  one  especially,  as  it  appeared  in  The  Star 
Chamber,  being  supposed  to  have  the  author's  sanction. 
But  the  key-makers  were  probably  just  as  well  able  as 
the  author  to  affix  a  name  to  most  of  the  characters. 
It  required  no  great  penetration  to  translate  Lord  Past 
Century  into  Lord  Eldon  or  the  Duke  of  Waterloo  into 
the  Duke  of  Wellington.  By  thin  disguises  such  as  these 
and  by  the  frequent  introduction  of  names  of  living 
persons  the  reader  is  certainly  encouraged  in  the  first 
part  of  Vivian  Grrey  to  search  for  real  characters  behind 
the  fictitious  names.  Disraeli  admitted  as  much  himself 
in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  after  the  publication  of  the 
sequel  in  the  following  year.  Colburn  had  made  a 
circuitous  attempt  to  extract  from  him  information  as 
to  the  prototypes  of  his  characters ;  and  Disraeli's  an- 
swer well  defines  his  position  then  and  later  on  the 


92  VIVIAN   GREY  [CHAP,  vi 

whole  question  of  portraiture   from   living  originals  in 
his  novels. 

To  William  Jerdan. 

[1827.] 

I  am  very  much  surprised  at  Mr.  Colburn's  request.  How 
my  knowledge  of  the  characters  in  Vivian  Grey  can  be 
necessary  to,  or,  indeed,  in  the  slightest  degree  assist  any 
one  in  understanding  the  work,  is  to  me  a  most  inexplicable 
mystery.  Let  it  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  characters 
are  purely  ideal,  and  the  whole  affair  is  settled.  If  any 
collateral  information  be  required  in  order  to  understand  the 
work,  either  Vivian  Grey  is  unworthy  to  be  read,  or,  which 
is,  of  course,  an  impossible  conclusion,  the  reader  is  not 
sagacious  enough  to  penetrate  its  meaning. 

Of  course,  I  have  no  intention  of  denying  that  these  volumes 
are,  in  a  very  great  degree,  founded  on  my  own  observation 
and  experience.  Possibly,  in  some  instances,  I  may  have 
very  accurately  depicted  existing  characters.  But  Vivian 
Grey  is  not  given  to  the  public  as  a  gallery  of  portraits,  nor 
have  I  any  wish  that  it  should  be  considered  as  such.  It 
will  give  me  great  pleasure  if  the  public  recognize  it  as  a  faith- 
ful picture  of  human  nature  in  general.  Whether  it  be 
anything  further,  rests  with  the  author  and  can  only  interest 
him.  I  cannot  prevent  surmises;  but  I  shall  always  take 
care  that  from  me  they  shall  receive  neither  denial  nor 
confirmation. 

In  part  of  the  former  volumes,  a  number  of  names  and 
characters  were  introduced  which  were  evident  portraits 
or  caricatures.  I  can  understand  any  reader  of  those  pages 
being  naturally  desirous  to  comprehend  their  full  meaning, 
and  seeking  auxiliary  means  to  procure  the  desired  know- 
ledge ;  but  to  comprehend  the  full  meaning  of  the  present 
volumes,  the  public  has  only  to  read  them ;  and  if  there 
be  anything  obscure  or  unsatisfactory,  it  is  the  author's 
fault — he  is  a  blunderer.  All  the  notes  and  keys  in  the 
kingdom  will  not  make  him  more  intelligible. 

The  Author  of  V.  G.1 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Disraeli's  knowledge  of  the  world 
of  politics  and  society  when  he  wrote  the  first  part  of 
Vivian  Grey  was  far  too  slight  for  genuine  portraiture 

1  Jordan's  Autobiography,  IV.,  p.  78. 


1827]  PORTRAITURE  IN  THE  NOVELS  93 

beyond  a  very  limited  circle.  The  characters  which 
have  an  obvious  reference  to  originals  in  high  places 
are  names  and  little  more  ;  in  the  world  of  letters  he  was 
more  at  home,  and  the  sketch  of  Theodore  Hook  in 
Stanislaus  Hoax  is  a  good  deal  more  ambitious  ;  but 
most  of  the  dramatis  personce  were  merely  conventional 
types,  and  in  many  cases  we  may  believe  that  the  key- 
makers  in  their  zeal  traced  them  to  originals  of  whom 
the  author  had  never  heard. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  TOUR  IN  ITALY 
1826 

Twelve  months'  continual  strain  and  excitement  were 
too  much  for  a  constitution  that  was  never  really  robust. 
In  June  we  hear  of  serious  illness,  and  in  an  opportune 
hour,  when  the  need  of  rest  and  change  had  become 
apparent,  there  came  an  invitation  from  the  Austens  to 
accompany  them  in  a  tour  through  Switzerland  and 
Northern  Italy.  The  invitation  was  at  once  accepted. 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

[July  (?),  1826.] 
DEAR  AUSTEN, 

Having  met  many  women  who  were  too  beautiful  at  the 
last  night's  dance,  I  slept  off  the  memory  of  their  loveliness 
by  an  extra  three  hours  of  oblivion,  and  was  therefore  unable 
to  answer  your  note  immediately ;  which,  however,  I  am  now 
doing  surrounded  by  a  much  better  breakfast  than  graced 
your  board  this  morning. 

A  devil,  though  an  ugly  name,  is  certainly  the  wisest  style 

of  dejeunei an   innocent   egg   perhaps   the   silliest :  why  I 

say  innocent  I  know  not,  for  certainly  if  a  devilled  turkey's 
leg  is  the  real  limb  of  Satan,  the  other  article  may  not  inaptly 
be  considered  the  '  yoke  of  sin.' 

According  to  your  advice,  I  have  '  perused  your  note  with 
attention  and  considered  your  offer  with  care,'  and,  as  the 
man  says  who  is  going  to  be  hired,  '  I  think  the  sitiation  will 
suit.'  It  ill  befits  any  man  to  dilate  on  his  own  excellence, 
but  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  observe  that  my  various, 

94 


1826]  PARIS  95 

not  to  say  innumerable,  accomplishments  are  not  altogether 
unknown  to  you ;  and  as  for  my  moral  capacities,  why,  I  can 
have  a  good  character  from  my  last  place,  which  I  left  on 
account  of  the  disappearance  of  the  silver  spoons.  I  defy, 
also,  any  one  to  declare  that  I  am  not  sober  and  honest,  except 
when  I  am  entrusted  with  the  key  of  the  wine  cellar,  when  I 
must  candidly  confess  I  have  an  ugly  habit  of  stealing  the 
claret,  getting  drunk,  and  kissing  the  maids.  Nevertheless, 
I've  no  doubt  but  that  we  shall  agree  very  well.  You  cer- 
tainly could  not  come  to  any  person  better  fitted  for  ordering 
a  dinner,  and  as  to  casting  up  accounts,  if  there's  anything 
in  the  world  I  excel  in  that's  the  very  one  —  and  as  I've  got 
into  the  habit  of  never  attending  to  the  shillings  and  pence 
because  they  make  my  head  ache,  I  generally  detect  the 

aubergiste  in  a  super-charge 

B.  D. 

For  this  second  Continental  journey  we  have  the  same 
voluminous  material  in  the  shape  of  letters  and  journals 
as  for  the  former.  Setting  forth  in  the  beginning  of 
August,  the  travellers  crossed  from  Dover  to  Boulogne. 

To  Isaac  D? Israeli. 

PARIS, 

Aug.  9,  1826. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER, 

.  .  .  .  Our  journey  to  Paris  was  much  pleasanter 
than  I  expected.  We  slept  the  first  night  at  Montreuil, 
at  the  inn  you  mentioned.  It  was  full  of  English, 
but  the  accommodation  is  as  delightful  as  ever.  Being 
overtaken  by  a  storm  in  the  next  day's  journey  we 
stopped  short  at  Grandvilliers  instead  of  reaching  Beauvais, 
passing  in  our  way  through  Abbeville,  where  we  stopped  two 
hours;  the  next  day  passing  through  Beauvais,  where  we 
stopped  a  couple  of  hours  to  see  the  old  Cathedral,  painted 
glass,  tapestry,  &c.  We  reached  Paris  Sunday  afternoon, 
and  are  now  in  the  Rue  de  Rlvoli,  the  best  situation  here, 
having  obtained  these  apartments  in  a  manner  which  would 
make  an  excellent  chapter  in  Gil  Bias,  and  beat  the  adventure 
of  the  Hotel  Garni  hollow. 

'Paris  is  delightful.'  I  never  was  so  much  struck  with 
anything  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life.  I  expected  another 
London,  but  there  are  no  points  of  resemblance.  I  did  not 
expect  in  so  short  a  distance  to  have  met  such  a  contrariety 
of  manners  and  life.  .  .  .  Yesterday  I  lionised  the  old 
City  and  the  Quais,  Notre  Dame,  &c.  I  was  very  much 


96  TOUR   IN  ITALY  [CHAP.VII 

struck  with  the  resemblance  of  the  Old  Town  of  Edinburgh  to 
the  ancient  parts  of  Paris ;  indeed,  at  some  times  the  resem- 
blance was  perfect.  I  am  going  to  the  Louvre  this  morning 
and  to  the  Opera  this  evening,  for  we  do  not  leave  Paris  until 
Friday.  .  .  . 

I  have  not  kept  my  journal,  but  of  course  shall.  My  fellow 
travellers  will,  however,  make  up  for  all  my  negligence; 
Austen's  journal  commencing  at  Guilford  Street,  with  the 
incidents  of  wheel-greasing  and  vail-giving  not  forgotten, 
and  Mrs.  A.  having  already  filled  her  quarto,  although 
having  more  modestly  commenced  only  at  Dover.  .  .  . 
God  bless  you. 

Yours  most  affectionately, 

B.  DISRAELI. 

From  Paris  they  posted  by  the  road  through  Dijon  to 
Geneva.  There  are  some  brightly  written  letters  from 
Mrs.  Austen  to  Sarah  Disraeli,  which  give  us  here  and 
there  an  interesting  side-glimpse  of  her  young  fellow- 
traveller.  'The  real  improvement  in  your  brother's 
health  and  looks  quite  surprises  me,'  she  writes  from 
Dijon.  '  He  seems  to  enjoy  everything,  pour  ou  contre, 
and  has  just  said  high  mass  for  a  third  bottle  of  burgundy.' 
Burgundy  was  always  his  favourite  wine. 

To  Isaac  D?  Israeli. 

GENEVA, 

Aug.  1. 
MY  DEAR  FATHER, 

.  .  .  .  At  the  termination  of  the  Jura  ridge  which 
bounds  one  side  of  the  plain  of  Geneva,  did  I  on  Friday 
morning  witness  the  most  magnificent  sight  in  the  world  — 
the  whole  range  of  the  high  Alps  with  Mont  Blanc  in  the 
centre  without  a  cloud1;  the  effect  was  so  miraculous  that 
for  a  long  time  I  did  not  perceive  the  lovely  scene  under 
me,  the  plain  and  city  and  lake  of  Geneva,  the  latter  of 
ultra-marine  blue.  Such  a  view  of  the  Alps  has  been  seen 
by  few  persons  in  this  country,  and  was  occasioned  by  the 
unparalleled  dryness  and  heat  of  the  season,  which,  as  we  are 
daily  informed  by  travellers,  exceeds  by  much  the  heat  now 
experienced  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  in  Italy.  The  heat 
does  not,  however,  affect  me  the  least.  I  have  not  had  a 
day's,  nay  an  hour's,  illness  since  I  left  England.  ...  I 

1  Compare  Contarini  Fleming,  Pt.  III.    ch.  1. 


1826]  BYRON'S   BOATMAN  97 

take  a  row  on  the  lake  every  night  with  Maurice,  Lord 
Byron's  celebrated  boatman.  Maurice  is  very  handsome  and 
very  vain,  but  he  has  been  made  so  by  the  English,  of  whom  he 
is  the  regular  pet.  He  talks  of  nothing  but  Lord  Byron, 
particularly  if  you  shew  the  least  interest  in  the  subject.  He 
told  me  that  in  the  night  of  the  famous  storm  described 
in  the  third  Canto  of  C[hilde]  H[arold],  had  they  been 
out  five  minutes  more  the  boat  must  have  been  wrecked.  He 
told  Lord  Byron  at  first  of  the  danger  of  such  a  night  voyage, 
and  the  only  answer  which  B.  made  was  stripping  quite 
naked  and  folding  round  him  a  great  robe  de  chambre,  so  that 
in  case  of  wreck  he  was  ready  prepared  to  swim  immediately. 
Lord  B.,  he  assures  me,  was  out  all  night  without  even 
stockings,  and  up  most  of  the  night  to  his  knees  in  water. 
I  asked  him  if  he  spoke.  He  said  that  he  seldom  conversed 
with  him  or  any  one  at  any  time,  but  that  this  night  he 
(Maurice)  was  so  employed  in  managing  the  boat  and  sail, 
&c.,  that  conversation  would  have  been  quite  impossible. 

One  day  Byron  sent  for  him  and,  sitting  down  in  the  boat, 
he  put  a  pistol  on  each  side  (which  was  his  invariable  practice) 
and  then  gave  him  300  napoleons,  ordering  him  to  row 
to  Chillon.  He  then  had  two  torches  lighted  in  the  dungeon 
and  wrote  for  two  hours  and  a  half.  On  coming  out,  the 
gendarme  who  guarded  the  castle  humbly  asked  for  quelque 
chose  d  boire.  '  Give  him  a  napoleon,'  said  his  Lordship. 
'  De  trop,  milor,'  said  Maurice,  who  being  but  recently 
installed  in  his  stewardship  was  somewhat  mindful  of  his 
master's  interest.  'Do  you  know  who  I  am?'  rejoined  the 
master,  '  Give  it  to  him  and  tell  him  that  the  donor  is  Lord 
Byron ! '  This  wonderful  piece  of  information  must  have 
produced  a  great  effect  on  the  poor  miserable  tippling 
gendarme.  But  in  the  slightest  things  was  Byron,  by  Maurice's 
account,  most  ludicrously  ostentatious.  He  gave  him  one 
day  five  napoleons  for  a  swimming  race  across  the  lake.  At 
the  sight  of  the  club  foot  Maurice  thought  he  was  sure  to 
win,  but  his  Lordship  gained  by  five  minutes.  Byron,  he 
says,  was  not  a  quick  swimmer,  but  he  was  never  exhausted, 
by  which  means  he  generally  won  when  the  distance  was  great. 
One  morning  Maurice  called  for  him  very  early  to  swim. 
Byron  brought  to  the  boat  his  breakfast,  consisting  of  cold 
duck,  &c.,  and  three  or  four  bottles  of  wine.  He  scarcely 
eat  anything,  but  drank  all  the  wine,  and  then  amused  him- 
self, while  they  were  sailing  to  the  appointed  place,  by  throw- 
ing the  provisions  gradually  into  the  water.  Upon  this  honest 
Maurice  gently  hinted  that  he  had  not  himself  breakfasted, 
and  that  he  should  swim  much  better  if  he  had  some  portion 

VOL.  I  —  H 


98  TOUR  IN  ITALY  [CHAP.VII 

of  his  Lordship's  superfluity.  'Friend  Maurice,'  said  B., 
'it  ill  becomes  true  Christians  to  think  of  themselves;  I 
shall  give  you  none.  You  see  I  eat  no  breakfast  myself : 
do  you  also  refrain,  for  the  sake  of  the  fishes.'  He  then  con- 
tinued his  donations  to  the  pikes  (which  here  are  beautiful) 
and  would  not  bestow  a  single  crumb  on  his  companion. 
'  This  is  all  very  well,'  says  Maurice,  '  but  his  Lordship 
forgot  one  little  circumstance.  He  had  no  appetite ;  I  had.' 
He  says  that  he  never  saw  a  man  eat  so  little  as  B.  in  all  his 
life,  but  that  he  would  drink  three  or  four  bottles  of  the 
richest  wines  for  his  breakfast.  I  shall  perhaps  remember 
more  when  we  meet. 

I  have  been  on  the  lake  at  all  hours,  and  seen  Mt.  Blanc 
by  all  lights,  twice  by  sunset,  when  the  whole  mighty  mountain 
is  quite  rosy.  The  effect  is  beyond  all  description.  The 
living  at  Secheron  is  most  excellent;  we  much  wanted  it. 
Except  at  Dijon  I  have  scarcely  had  anything  to  eat  since 
I  left  Paris.  In  the  Juras  we  were  literally  without  a  meal. 
The  honey  of  the  Alps,  wild  strawberries,  butter,  cheese, 
and  eggs  are  all  very  well  in  romance  and  certainly  are  not 
to  be  despised  as  collaterals,  but  with  us  they  were  principals 
for  successive  days.  Travellers  require  nourishing  food.  In 
the  Juras  we  could  not  even  get  a  bottle  of  common  wine, 
and  the  bread  was  black  and  not  only  sour  but  acid.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  A.  is  very  well,  and  speaks  French  with  even  greater 
rapidity  than  she  does  English.  I  hope  to  God  my  mother 
is  better.  Love  to  all. ,  Tell  Jim  and  Ralph  I'd  give  anything 
for  an  election. 

Your  most  affectionate  son, 

B.   DISRAELI. 

An  eloquent  passage  in  the  diary  supplements  this 
letter  :  — 

GENEVA, 

Aug.  20. 

I  was  on  the  lake  again  this  night.  It  was  partially  cloudy ; 
the  moon  finally  gained  the  ascendency.  Swift  lightning 
played  opposite  her  at  intervals.  In  valleys  of  mountains 
it  is  very  beautiful  to  watch  the  effect  of  sunrise  and  sunset. 
The  high  peaks  are  first  illumined:  the  soft  yellow  light 
then  tips  the  lower  elevations,  and  the  bright  golden  showers 
soon  bathe  the  whole  valley,  except  a  dark  streak  at  the 
bottom,  which  is  often  not  visited  by  sunlight.  The  effect  of 
sunset  is  perhaps  still  more  lovely :  the  highest  peaks  are  those 
which  the  sun  loves  most.  One  by  one  mountains  relatively 
to  their  elevations  steal  into  darkness;  and  the  rosy  tint 


1826]  LAKE   OF   GENEVA  99 

is  often  suffused  over  the  peaks  and  glaciers  of  Mt.  Blanc, 
while  the  whole  world  below  is  perfectly  in  the  darkest 
twilight.1 

To  Isaac  D'Israeli. 

MILAN, 

Sept.  2. 
MY  DEAR  FATHER, 

.  .  .  .  I  mentioned  that  I  had  been  to  Ferney  in  my 
last  letter.  ...  Of  the  situation  I  had  no  previous 
idea,  and  can  give  you  no  present  description.  It  is  sublime ! 
placed  between  two  of  the  most  splendid  ranges  of  Alps  in 
the  world,  with  eternal  snows,  and  a  gigantic  lake,  and 
forest  of  pines,  it  should  have  inspired  a  more  Homeric  epic 
than  the  Henriade,  and  chastened  a  more  libidinous  effusion 
than  the  Pucelle. 

I  had  my  heart's  content  before  I  left  Geneva  —  the  night 
before.  My  friend  Maurice  sent  for  me  after  a  very  cloudy 
day  to  say  that  there  was  every  prospect  of  a  fine  storm  upon 
the  lake.  As  it  was  just  after  dinner,  and  Austen  was  with 
me,  I  was  obliged  to  take  a  companion,  but,  as  we  had  dis- 
cussed a  considerable  quantity  of  Burgundy,  I  was  soon 
freed  from  his  presence,  for  he  laid  down  in  the  boat  on  my 
cloak,  and  ere  half  an  hour  was  past  was  fast  asleep,  never 
disturbing  us  save  with  an  occasional  request  to  participate 
in  our  brandy  bottle.  As  for  myself,  I  was  soon  sobered, 
not  by  sleep,  but  by  the  scene.  It  was  sublime  —  lightning 
almost  continuous,  and  sometimes  in  four  places,  but  as  the 
evening  advanced  the  lake  became  quite  calm,  and  we  never 
had  a  drop  of  rain.  I  would  willingly  have  staid  out  all 
night,  but  we  were  to  leave  the  next  morning  at  five,  and 
nothing  was  packed  up.  .  .  . 

After  the  lake  we  entered  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  and 
approached  the  high  Alps.  The  scenery  was  really  painfully 
sublime.  We  gazed  till  our  eyes  ached,  and  yet  dared  not 
withdraw  them  from  the  passing  wonders.  .  .  .  The 
passage  of  the  Simplon  is  the  grand  crowning  scene.  We 
staid  one  day  at  Brieg,  where  the  passage  commences,  on 
account  of  the  stormy  weather,  but  as  it  did  not  abate  we 
set  off  the  next  day.  Nothing  could  be  more  awful  than  the 
first  part  of  our  passage;  the  sublimity  of  the  scenery  was 
increased  by  the  partial  mists  and  the  gusts  of  rain.  Nothing 
is  more  terrific  than  the  near  roar  of  a  cataract  which  is 
covered  by  a  mist.  It  is  horrible.  When  we  arrived  at  the 
summit  of  the  road  the  weather  cleared,  and  we  found 

1  Compare  again  Contarini,  Pt.  III.  ch.  1. 


100  TOUR  IN  ITALY  [CHAP,  vn 

ourselves  surrounded  by  perpetual  snow.  The  scenery  here 
and  for  a  mile  or  two  before  was  perfect  desolation,  cataracts 
coursing  down  crumbled  avalanches  whose  horrible  surface 
was  only  varied  by  the  presence  of  one  or  two  blasted  firs. 
Here  in  this  dreary  and  desolate  scene  burst  forth  a  small 
streak  of  blue  sky,  the  harbinger  of  the  Italian  heaven. 
During  our  whole  descent  down  the  Italian  side,  which  is 
by  far  the  most  splendid,  we  enjoyed  the  sun.  We  were 
for  a  long  time,  however,  very  cold.  The  contrast  on 
descending  into  Italy  is  wonderfully  striking  .  .  .  the 
purple  mountains,  the  glittering  lakes,  the  cupola'd  convents, 
the  many-windowed  villas  crowning  luxuriant-wooded  hills, 
the  undulation  of  shore,  the  projecting  headland,  the  receding 
bay,  the  roadside  uninclosed,  yet  bounded  with  walnut  and 
vine  and  fig  and  acacia  and  almond  trees  bending  down 
under  the  load  of  their  fruit,  the  wonderful  effect  of  light 
and  shade,  the  trunks  of  every  tree  looking  black  as  ebony, 
and  their  thick  foliage,  from  the  excessive  light,  looking  quite 
thin  and  transparent  in  the  sunshine,  the  thousand  villages, 
each  with  a  church  with  a  tall,  thin  tower,  the  large  melons 
trailing  over  walls,  and,  above  all,  the  extended  prospect 
are  so  striking  after  the  gloom  of  Alpine  passes,  are  so  different 
in  their  sunny  light  from  the  reflected  unearthly  glitter  of 
eternal  snows  that  we  are  constrained  to  feel  that,  in  speaking 
of  Italy,  romance  has  omitted  for  once  to  exaggerate.  But 
you  must  remember  that  we  are  in  the  most  beautiful  parts 
of  northern  Italy,  and  that  I  have  not  yet  entered  the  plains 
of  Lombardy.  I  say  the  most  beautiful  part,  for  I  have 
just  quitted  the  Lago  Maggiore,  and  I  am  about  to  introduce 
you  to  the  Lake  of  Como. 

It  is  a  much  smaller  lake  than  Maggiore,  and  yet  quite 
different — wooded  mountains  green  with  vineyards  and 
descending  immediately  into  the  water  without  any  shore 
to  the  lake.  It  is  literally  covered  with  glittering  palaces. 
It  is  difficult  to  make  you  understand  the  difference  between 
these  two  magical  lakes,  but  Maggiore,  with  the  exception 
of  Isola  Bella,  is  of  a  severer  kind  of  beauty.  Lago  Maggiore 
is  a  precious  stone  and  the  Lake  of  Como  is  a  gem  ;  perhaps 
you  now  understand  me  a  little  better.  We  were  on  the 
lake  six  or  seven  hours.  We  visited  the  Villa  Pliniana,  so 
called,  not  because  it  was  the  residence  of  a  Pliny,  but  because 
of  a  celebrated  intermittent  spring,  the  curiosity  of  which 
supplied  a  chapter  to  the  naturalist  and  a  letter  to  the  nephew. 
I  also  saw  the  Villa  d'  Este,  the  residence  of  the  late  Queen. 
The  apartments  are  left  in  exactly  the  same  state  as  in  her 
lifetime ;  there  is  the  theatre  in  which  she  acted  Columbine, 


1826]  THE  ALPS  AND  MILAN  101 

and  the  celebrated  statues  of  Adam  and  Eve  covered  with 
the  yet  more  celebrated  fig-leaves.  It  is  a  villa  of  the  first 
grade,  and  splendidly  adorned,  but  the  ornaments  are,  without 
an  exception,  so  universally  indelicate  that  it  was  painful  to 
view  them  in  the  presence  of  a  lady.  .  .  .  Here,  if  they 
possessed  any  interest,  might  you  obtain  thousands  of  stories 
of  her  late  Majesty,  but  the  time  is  passed,  thank  God,  for 
them.  Our  riots  in  her  favor  are  the  laughing  stock  of 
Italy.  .  .  . 

Dr.  Ciceri,  to  whom  Forbes  gave  me  a  letter,  is  of  the 
greatest  use  to  us  at  Milan.  He  is  a  very  singular  character 
and  of  great  importance  in  this  city.  We  find  him  extremely 
courteous,  and  through  him  see  everything  here  to  great 
advantage.  I  was  yesterday  at  the  refectory  of  Santa  Maria 
delle  Grazie  to  see  the  Last  Supper.  It  is  in  a  much  better 
state  than  I  had  imagined.  The  engraving  of  Morghen  is 
very  unlike.  I  do  not  think  the  expression  of  any  of  the 
countenances  is  correct.  .  .  .  The  pride  of  Ciceri  is  to 
be  considered  an  Englishman.  He  lives  among  the  English 
nobility  who  travel  through  and  reside  here,  and  is  their 
factotum  on  every  subject.  He  lodges  in  a  palace,  and  dines 
every  day  on  a  beefsteak.  He  is  known  to  everybody  in 
Italy,  and  manages  the  business  of  all  Milan.  He  is  a  sort  of 
intellectual  Paul  Pry,  the  best  of  cicerone  s,  of  course,  and 
with  a  little  management  the  most  courteous  of  men,  but  he 
is  a  little  surly  at  first,  because  he  conceives  that  that  is 
keeping  up  the  English  character.  However,  our  acquaint- 
ance with  him  is  extremely  fortunate.  My  fellow  travellers 
are  very  kind  and  very  accommodating.  Austen  is  particularly 
learned  in  coins  and  postilions  and  exchange.  We  have 
met  lots  of  people  whom  the  Austens  know,  and  these 
occasional  rencontres  are  very  agreeable.  I  meant  to  have 
written  a  whole  letter  about  La  Scala  and  the  ballet  here, 
which  ranks  almost  with  tragedy,  but  my  long  letter  is  full. 
I  shall  write  from  here  again  when  I  have  received  yours, 
or  from  Venice,  where  I  shall  be  on  Thursday.  We  travel 
slowly,  which  is  delightful.  Could  you  but  see  a  few  of  our 
countrymen,  how  much  they  do  and  how  little  they  enjoy 
and  understand !  The  excitement  of  idiotism  I  never  witnessed 
before,  and  it  is  very  ludicrous,  but  I  must  introduce  you  to 
characters  orally.  God  bless  you  all. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

B.  DISRAELI. 


102  TOUR  IN  ITALY  [CHAP,  va 

It  must  have  been  on  this  journey  through  the  Alps 
that  Disraeli  made  an  excursion  to  the  Great  St.  Bernard, 
and  the  visit  rewarded  him  with  an  incident  which  he 
used  to  recall  in  later  years. 

The  Brotherhood  on  hearing  that  a  young  Englishman 
was  in  the  Hospice  expressed  an  anxious  desire  to  see  me, 
and  I  waited  on  the  Superior.  I  found  that  all  the  anxiety 
arose  from  a  desire  to  hear  how  the  Thames  Tunnel  had 
succeeded.  I  had  to  confess  I  had  never  seen  it,  and  I 
afterwards  reflected  that  one  must  travel  to  learn  what 
really  is  to  be  seen  in  one's  country,  and  resolved  at  once  on 
my  return  to  supply  the  omission.  But  do  you  know,  I 
have  never  seen  it  yet.1 

In  Milan,  under  the  guidance  of  his  friend  Ciceri, 
Disraeli  saw,  in  addition  to  Leonardo's  great  picture, 
everything  notable  that  there  was  to  be  seen  :  the 
Cathedral,  for  which  he  has  only  qualified  praise ; 
'it  stands  alone  without  a  rival,  but  whether  rivalry 
is  desirable  is  dubious ' ;  the  Brera,  where  strangely 
enough  the  two  pictures  that  struck  him  most  were 
Salvator's  '  Souls  being  delivered  from  Purgatory ' 
and  Guercino's  '  Abraham  dismissing  Hagar '  —  but 
those  were  the  days  before  Ruskin  ;  and  the  Ambrosian 
Library,  where,  more  in  accordance  with  modern  taste, 
he  notes  'an  exquisite  Holy  Family  by  Luini  —  a 
mannerist  who  for  once  is  delicious.'  Nor  had  he  an 
eye  only  for  churches  and  pictures.  A  visit  to  the 
Corso  leads  to  many  reflections  on  the  life  and  manners 
of  the  Milanese  ;  and  here  we  come  across  the  original 
of  a  sketch  in  the  second  part  of  Vivian  G-rey. 

Count  Ciconia  is  the  leader  of  the  ton  at  Milan.  He  is 
a  dandy  of  genius,  worthy  of  Brummell.  He  is  about  45, 
dresses  very  plainly,  has  been  frequently  in  England,  and 
pays  constant  trips  there  to  study.  He  is  young  in  figure, 
but  his  face  is  long  and  old,  a  bachelor  with  a  loud  shrill 
voice.  He  is  curious  in  horses,  drives  four-in-hand  in  perfect 
style,  and  was  attended  always  by  English  grooms  till  their 
idleness  forced  him  to  give  them  up.  They  will  not  do  for 

1  From  a  note  by  Lord  Eowton. 


1826]  VERONA  103 

Italy.  Ciconia  is  as  rapid  in  the  change  of  his  style  and 
dress  as  in  his  conceptions.  White  hats  are  at  Milan  the 
rage,  which  Ciconia  introduced.  He  appeared  the  last  day  on 
the  Corso  in  a  black  one.  This  formed  the  subject  of  the  af- 
ternoon's conversation  at  all  the  cafes  and  circles.  The  dandies 
are  numerous  and  splendid  :  Italians,  Austrians,  Hungarians  j 
mustaches  of  all  colours  and  descriptions. 

From  Milan  the  travellers  proceeded  to  Brescia  and 
thence  by  Desenzano,  '  where  we  breakfasted  on  delicious 
trout  on  the  banks  of  the  Lago  di  Garda  and  opposite 
to  the  villa  of  Catullus '  to  Verona. 

To  Isaac  D'lsraeli.1 

Verona  is  full  of  pictures  which  have  never  been  painted. 
Every  step  excites  emotion  and  gives  rise  to  unaffected 
reflection.  In  the  course  of  a  short  stroll,  you  may  pass 
by  a  Roman  amphitheatre,  still  used,  then  the  castle  of 
some  petty  prince  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  while  you  are 
contrasting  the  sublime  elevation  of  antiquity  with  the 
heterogeneous  palace  of  a  Scaliger  your  eyes  light  on  a  gate 
of  Oriental  appearance  and  fantastic  ornament  erected  by 
the  Venetians  when  they  were  the  conquerors  of  the  most 
fertile  district  of  Northern  Italy.  Memorials  of  this  wonder- 
ful people  are  constantly  before  you.  In  the  market  place 
rises  a  lofty  pillar  which  evidently  once  bore  some  sculptured 
burden.  Ask,  it  was  the  winged  Lion  of  St.  Mark.  Stand 
in  the  Piazza  dei  Signori  at  Verona.  There  is  the  palace 
of  the  Council  of  Sansovino  —  on  another  hill  is  a  Saracenic 
palace,  once  an  office  of  Venetian  administration,  three  or 
four  perspectives  are  afforded  by  various  arches  which  open 
into  streets  or  other  piazzas,  and  a  magnificent  tower  rises 
from  a  corner.  The  illusion  is  perfect,  the  eye  rests  with 
pain  on  the  passing  citizens  in  their  modern  costumes  ;  you 
look  for  black  velvets  and  gold  chains,  white  feathers  and  red 
stockings.  .  .  . 

From  Verona  through  a  beautiful  country,  where  the  vine 
is  married  to  the  mulberry,  we  travelled  to  Vicenza.  The 
famous  Palladian  palaces  are  in  decay.  They  are  built  of 
brick,  sometimes  plastered,  occasionally  whitewashed;  the 
red  material  is  constantly  appearing  and  vies  in  hideous  color 

1  The  descriptions  now  begin  to  lag  so  much  behind  the  journey 
that  we  only  reach  Venice  in  a  letter  written  from  Florence ; 
and  I  have  omitted  the  date-lines  where  they  might  mislead  or  con- 
fuse. 


104  TOUR  IN  ITALY  [CHAP,  vn 

with  the  ever  offensive  roof.  It  is  a  miserable  thing  that 
a  man  worthy  of  Athens  or  Rome  should  have  worked  with 
such  materials.  .  .  . 

From  Vicenza,  with  its  much-appreciated  treasures  of 
Palladian  architecture,  the  travellers  drove  through  Padua 
and  along  the  banks  of  the  Brenta  to  Venice. 

To  Isaac  Df  Israeli. 

I  entered *  Venice  with  a  magnificent  setting  sun  on  a  grand 
fe"te  day.  As  we  glided  in  a  gondola  up  the  great  Lagune 
we  passed  St.  Mark's,  the  Campanile,  the  Palace  of  the 
Doges,  the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  the  Prison,  before  we  reached  our 
hotel,  once  the  proud  residence  of  the  Bernadinis,  a  family 
which  has  given  more  than  one  Doge  to  the  old  Republic ; 
the  floors  of  our  rooms  were  of  marble,  the  hangings  of  satin, 
the  ceilings  painted  by  Tintoretto  and  his  scholars  full  of 
Turkish  triumphs  and  trophies,  the  chairs  of  satin  and  the 
gilding  though  of  two  hundred  years'  duration  as  brightly 
burnished  as  the  new  mosaic  invention.  After  a  hasty 
dinner  we  rushed  to  the  mighty  Place  of  St.  Mark.  It  was 
crowded,  two  Greek  and  one  Turkish  ship  of  war  were  from 
accidental  circumstances  in  port,  and  their  crews  mingled 
with  the  other  spectators  with  high  foreheads  and  higher 
caps  and  elevated  eyebrows ;  then  there  was  the  Austrian 
military  band,  and  the  bearded  Jew  with  his  black  velvet 
cap  was  not  wanting.  Three  gorgeous  flags  waved  on  the 
mighty  staffs  which  are  opposite  the  Church  in  all  the  old 
drawings  and  which  once  bore  the  standards  of  Candia, 
Crete,  and  the  Morea.  Tired  with  travelling  we  left  the 
gay  scene  crowded,  but  the  moon  was  so  bright  that  a 
juggler  was  conjuring  in  a  circle  under  our  window,  and  an 
itinerant  Italian  opera  performing  by  our  bridge.  Serenades 
were  constant  during  the  whole  night ;  indeed,  music  is  never 
silent  in  Venice.  I  wish  I  could  give  you  an  idea  of  the 
moonlights  there,  but  that  is  impossible.  Venice  by  moon- 
light is  an  enchanted  city ;  the  floods  of  silver  light  upon 
the  moresco  architecture,  the  perfect  absence  of  all  harsh 
sounds  of  carts  and  carriages,  the  never-ceasing  music  on  the 
waters  produced  an  effect  on  the  mind  which  cannot  be  ex- 
perienced, I  am  sure,  in  any  other  city  in  the  world. 

Five  days  in  all  were  spent  in  Venice,  and  they  were 
days  of  intense  enjoyment.  To  one  so  deeply  imbued 

1  On  Sept.  8. 


1526]  VENICE  105 

with  historic   feeling   and   with   an   innate   love   of   the 
gorgeous   East,   it   could   not   be   otherwise. 


To  Isaac  D' Israeli. 

Sailing  down  the  Grand  Canal  the  palaces  of  Foscari, 
Grimani,  Barberigo,  and  other  names  which  make  the  coldest 
heart  thrill  rise  rapidly  before  you.  .  .  .  The  Palace  of 
the  Doges  is  still  kept  up  for  public  offices,  library,  &c.  Its 
walls  are  painted  by  the  greatest  masters  of  the  miraculous 
Venetian  school,  and  its  roof  is  gilt  and  adorned  in  a  manner 
which  leaves  far  behind  all  the  magnificence  of  all  the  palaces 
in  the  world.  In  every  room  you  are  reminded  of  the  glory 
and  the  triumphs  of  the  Republic :  the  door  of  one  chamber 
once  closed  upon  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia,  the  pillars  of 
another  graced  a  temple  in  the  Morea,  and  even  Solomon's 
Temple  is  not  forgotten,  and  two  pillars  of  fantastic  archi- 
tecture were  carved  from  large  columns  of  granite  which  were 
brought  in  triumph  by  a  noble  Venetian  from  the  ruins  of 
Jerusalem.  St.  Mark's  Church  is  a  pile  of  precious  stones, 
the  walls  are  of  all  kinds  of  the  rarest  marbles  and  even  of 
jasper,  lapis  lazuli,  and  the  richest  porphyry  and  Oriental 
agates,  the  interior  is  cased  with  mosaics  of  gold,  and  in  the 
front  figure  five  hundred  pillars  of  all  kinds  of  architecture 
and  colors,  some  of  which  are  of  verd  antique.  The  four 
brazen  horses  amble,  not  prance,  as  some  have  described, 
on  the  front,  and  five  cupolas,  hooded  cupolas,  crown  this 
Christian  Mosque.  .  .  .  It  is  vain  to  write  anything  here 
of  the  pictures,  the  churches,  the  palaces,  with  which  this 
city  abounds.  According  to  the  common  opinion  I  saw  all 
that  ought  to  be  seen,  but  I  never  felt  less  inclined  to  quit  a 
place.  It  is  in  these  spots  that  I  wish  to  stay,  for  it  is  in 
such  places  that  the  mind  receives  that  degree  of  wholesome 
excitation  which  is  one  of  the  great  benefits  of  travel,  I  mean 
an  excitation  which  quickens  the  feelings  and  the  fancy,  and 
which  enables  the  mind  to  arrive  at  results  with  greater 
facility  and  rapidity  than  we  do  at  home,  and  in  our 
studies. 

But  in  these  sage  reflections  and  in  all  this  enthusiasm 
for  the  external  splendour  of  Venice,  there  is  still  some- 
thing wanting,  as  readers  of  Contarini  will  feel.  We  find 
not  a  trace  of  the  peculiar  excitement  and  exultation 
with  which  the  hero  of  that  novel  approached  the  home 


106  TOUR  IN   ITALY  [CHAP,  vn 

of  his  fathers.  Clearly  Disraeli  had  not  yet  evolved  the 
theory  of  his  own  Venetian  origin  ;  and  he  does  not  even 
seem  to  have  been  aware  that  he  had  near  relations  living 
in  the  City  at  the  time  of  his  visit.  Even  his  apprecia- 
tion of  the  art  treasures  of  Venice  —  of  'the  miraculous 
Venetian  school '  —  seems  to  have  been  far  from  perfect. 
'  Venice,'  he  writes  later  from  Florence,  '  revealed  to  me 
the  Venetian  school,  Titian,  Giorgione,  Tintoretto,  Paul 
Veronese,  Palma,  &c.'  But  alas  !  without  a  pause  he 
adds,  'Bologna  in  its  public  gallery  introduced  me  to 
perhaps  a  still  more  illustrious  band,  taken  altogether, 
the  finest  school  in  Italy,  the  three  Carracci  and  their 
four  wonderful  scholars,  Domenichino,  Guido,  Albani, 
Guercino ;  the  latter,  perhaps  the  most  wonderful,  and 
who  from  his  miraculous  and  enchanting  use  of  chiaro- 
scuro was  called  the  magician  of  art,  is  a  native  of  a 
little  town  a  few  miles  from  Bologna,  Cento,  which 
perhaps  you  remember.'  Apparently  he  had  no  sus- 
picion of  the  fact  that  Cento  had  a  place  in  his  own 
family  history. 

On  the  way  from  Venice  to  Bologna  a  pilgrimage  was 
made  to  the  tomb  of  Petrarch  at  Arqua,  and  in  Ferrara 
of  course  the  cell  of  Tasso  was  visited.  '  The  door  posts 
of  this  gloomy  dungeon  are  covered  with  the  names  of 
its  visitors  ;  here  scratched  with  a  great  nail  on  the  brick 
wall  I  saw  sprawled  "  Byron  "  ;  "  Sam  Rogers  "  printed 
in  pencil  in  a  neat  banker's  hand  was  immediately  under- 
neath.' Bologna  he  '  left  on  the  second  day  with  regret,' 
and  crossed  the  Apennines  to  Florence.  A.  long  letter 
to  his  father  retails  his  impressions  and  adventures 
during  a  fortnight's  stay  in  this  'most  delightful  city.' 
He  has  now,  after  seeing  the  pictures  of  the  great 
Florentine  masters  and  'many  of  the  finest  works  of 
Raphael  and  other  painters  of  the  Roman  school '  in  the 
Uffizi  and  Pitti  Palaces,  acquired  'a  very  tolerable  idea 
of  the  comparative  styles  and  merits  of  the  great  Italian 
schools.'  He  has  'gazed  upon  the  Venus  de  Medici 
without  prejudice  and  left  it  with  veneration.'  He  has 


1826]  FLORENCE  107 

'seen  enough  in  Italy  to  know  that  we  are  not  setting 
about  the  right  way  in  England  to  form  a  National 
Gallery.'  At  a  recent  sale  in  Florence  'the  finest  pictures 
were  sold  for  a  song.  Why  had  not  the  National  Gallery 
an  agent  on  the  spot  ?  What  is  Lord  Burghersh  paid 
for?'  and  so  forth.1 


To  Isaac  D' Israeli. 

FLORENCE, 

Sept.  29,  1826. 

There  are  some  clever  artists  and  sculptors  at  Florence. 
Among  the  latter,  since  the  death  of  Canova,  Bertolini  is 
reckoned  the  most  eminent  in  Italy.  He  is  a  man  of  genius. 
I  had  the  honor  of  a  very  long  conversation  with  him,  of  course 
upon  his  art.  He  is  a  friend  of  Chantrey,  but  the  God  of  his 
idolatry,  and  indeed  of  all  the  Italians,  is  Flaxman.  Bertolini 
said  that  he  considered  that  Flaxman  had  revived  the  taste  of 
Europe,  that  he  was  a  classic,  and  that  he  thought  that  a 
young  man  might  study  his  works  with  as  much  advantage 
as  the  treasures  of  the  Vatican  or  the  Tribune.  He  asked  me 
to  explain  the  reason  of  the  indifference  of  the  English  to  this 
great  man,  and  expressed  his  surprise  at  finding  him  almost 
unknown  to  the  great  number  of  our  travelling  countrymen, 
and  little  esteemed  even  by  our  great  artists.  He  mentioned 
Wilkie's  opinion  of  Flaxman  with  his  eyes  up  to  the  sky.  It 
seems  the  English  Teniers  is  no  great  admirer  of  one  whom 
Bertolini  says  is  the  greatest  poet  that  ever  lived,  though  he 
never  wrote  a  verse.  The  studios  of  all  these  men  are  open 
to  all  travellers,  and  form  the  most  agreeable  and  instructive 
lounges.  .  .  . 

In  one  of  my  speculations  I  have  been  disappointed.  In 
the  Pitti  Palace  there  is  a  most  beautiful  portrait  of  Charles  1st 
by  Vandyke,  the  most  pleasing  and  noble  likeness  that  I  have 
ever  seen.  It  is  a  picture  highly  esteemed.  I  engaged  a 
miniature  painter  here  (a  class  of  artists  much  esteemed  at 
Florence)  to  make  me  an  exquisite  copy  of  this  picture  with 
which  I  intended  to  surprise  you.  After  a  week's  work  he  has 

1  Disraeli's  interest  in  the  Christian  Middle  Age  was  never  great,  and 
in  the  letters  from  Florence  there  is  not  a  single  mention  of  Dante. 
Of  Michael  Angelo,  as  we  may  gather  from  the  long  tirade  in  Vivian 
Grey  (Bk.  V.,  ch.  2),  he  was  'no  extravagant  admirer';  even  the 
great  monuments  in  the  Sacristy  of  San  Lorenzo  he  was  not  able  to  look 
upon  '  without  disappointment.' 


108  TOUR  IX   ITALY  [CHAP,  vn 

brought  it  to-day,  but  has  missed  the  likeness !  And  yet  he 
was  the  Court  painter,  Signer  Carloni.  I  have  refused  to  take 
the  work  and  am  embroiled  in  a  row,  but  in  this  country  firm- 
ness is  alone  necessary  and  the  Italians  let  you  do  what  you 
like,  so  I've  no  fear  as  to  the  result.  My  mortification  and 
disappointment,  however,  are  extreme. 

We  have  some  agreeable  acquaintance  here.  Among  them 
a  very  extraordinary  man  of  the  name  of  Saunders.  He  is 
the  descendant  of  one  of  those  Scotch  families  who  used  so 
often  to  emigrate  on  speculation  to  Russia.  He  was  the 
intimate  friend  of  the  late  Emperor  Alexander,  and  is  highly 
esteemed  by  the  present  Emperor  ...  is  still  attached 
to  the  Court  of  Russia,  is  an  Aulic  Councillor,  &c.  He  is  a 
deep  student,  full  of  philosophy,  first  principles,  and  the 
study  of  the  beautiful,  but  eloquent  and  profound.  Though 
of  a  very  close  temper,  he  was  so  delighted  to  get  hold  of 
some  one  who  had  a  literary  turn  that  we  have  become  toler- 
ably intimate,  and  I  occasionally  visit  him  at  his  country 
villa,  which,  by  the  bye,  is  the  Villa  Vespiicci,  rented  by 
him  of  a  noble  family  of  that  name,  the  lineal  descend- 
ants of  the  famous  Americus.  He  is  now  engraving  the 
most  valuable  picture  in  Italy,  the  masterpiece  of  Fra  Barto- 
lommeo.1 

Florence  is  not  only  one  of  the  most  delightful  cities  to 
live  in,  but  is  also  the  cheapest  in  Europe.  Here  cheapness, 
real  cheapness,  is  to  be  found,  for  here  luxuries  are  cheap. 
An  English  family  of  the  highest  respectability  may  live 
in  Florence  with  every  convenience  and  keep  a  handsome 
carriage,  horses,  liveries,  &c.,  for  five  hundred  a  year.  I 
speak  here  of  an  average  sized  family,  as  ours.  On  this 
income  you  might  enter  into  the  best  society,  and  the  best 
society  here  is  excellent.  You  may  live  in  a  palace  built 
by  Michael  Angelo,  keep  a  villa  two  miles  from  the  city  in 
a  most  beautiful  situation,  with  vineyards,  fruit  and  pleasure 
gardens,  &c.,  &c.,  keep  two  carriages,  have  your  opera  box, 
and  live  in  every  way  as  the  first  Florentine  nobility,  go  to 
Court,  have  your  own  night  for  receiving  company,  &c.,  &c., 
on  less  than  a  thousand  a  year,  and  this  with  no  miserable 
managing,  but  with  the  enjoyment  of  every  comfort  and 
luxury. 

1  The  '  Madonna  della  Misericordia,'  now  in  the  public  gallery  at 
Lucca. 


1826]  FLORENCE   TO   TURIN  109 


TtTRIN, 

Oct.  10, 1826. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER, 

We  travelled  from  delightful  Florence  through  the  luxuri- 
ant Val  d'Arno  to  Pisa,  where  the  Cathedral  and  its  more  won- 
derful Baptistery,  the  leaning  tower,  and  the  Campo  Santo 
riveted  our  attention.  .  .  .  The  country  from  Pisa  to 
Lucca,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  of  that  little  state  is  most 
lovely.  Sated  as  we  were  with  scenery,  and  desirous  al- 
most to  avoid  any  mention  of  the  subject,  yet  we  have  yet 
scarcely  ceased  to  talk  in  wonder  and  admiration  of  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean.  The  journey  from  Spezzia  to  Genoa 
baffles  all  idea.  .  .  .  For  two  days  we  wandered  among 
the  most  exquisite  and  the  wildest  parts  of  the  Apennines, 
not  the  Apennines  that  we  had  before  been  used  to,  but 
the  Apennines  of  romance  and  Mrs.  Ratcliffe,  with  streamy 
blue  distances  and  unfathomable  woody  dells  and  ruined 
castles,  and  constant  views  of  the  blue  Mediterranean  and 
its  thousand  bays.  On  the  third  day  we  descended  nearly  to 
its  shore,  but  what  a  shore !  It  required  no  stretch  of  the 
imagination  to  fancy  ourselves  in  Asia  and  under  an  Oriental 
sky,  for  aloes,  huge  everlasting  aloes,  here  grow  on  the 
shingles,  and  groves  of  olive  trees,  dates  and  figs,  and  clusters 
of  Eastern  trees  abound  upon  the  green  mountains,  which 
descend  into  the  sea,  and  whose  only  artificial  ornaments  are 
towns  of  colored  marble,  and  amphitheatres  of  palaces.  The 
shore,  as  I  said  before,  is  broken  into  innumerable  bays,  which 
vie  with  each  other  for  superiority,  until  they  all  yield  to  their 
Queen  —  the  gorgeous  bay  of  Genoa,  on  whose  mountain 
banks  rises  in  a  crescent  Genoa  la  Superba,  a  crowd  of  palaces, 
villas,  and  convents.  But  I  am  writing  of  that  which  should 
be  seen.  However,  the  scenery  of  the  Mediterranean  would 
alone  repay  me  for  twice  ten  thousand  the  fatigues  I  have 
suffered. 

Two  days'  travelling,  during  one  of  which  we  again  crossed 
the  great  chain  of  the  Apennines  and  entered  Northern 
Italy,  have  brought  us  to  Turin.  The  mighty  chain  of  the 
High  Alps  covered  with  snow  now  meets  our  eyes,  and  to- 
morrow we  shall  cross  Mount  Cenis.  ...  I  expect  to  be 
on  the  24th  at  Dover.  Thus  end  my  travels.  I  trust  I  have 
not  travelled  in  vain.  Nature  and  Art  have  been  tolerably 
well  revealed  to  me.  The  Alps,  the  Apennines,  and  two  seas 
have  pretty  well  done  for  the  first,  and  though  I  may  see 
more  cities  I  cannot  see  more  varieties  of  European  nature. 
Five  capitals  and  twelve  great  cities,  innumerable  remains  of 
antiquity  and  the  choicest  specimens  of  modern  art  have  told 


110  TOUR  IN   ITALY  [CHAP,  vu 

me  what  man  has  done  and  is  doing.  I  feel  now  that  it  is  not 
prejudice,  when  I  declare  that  England,  with  all  her  imperfec- 
tions, is  worth  all  the  world  together,  and  I  hope  it  is  not 
misanthropy  when  I  feel  that  I  love  lakes  and  mountains 
better  than  courts  and  cities,  and  trees  better  than  men. 
That  is  to  say,  men  in  general.  Yours  I  must  always  be  most 
affectionately.  In  a  fortnight  I  shall  have  the  inexpressible 
happiness  of  joining  you. 

B.  DISRAELI. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

LYONS, 

Oct.  15,  1826. 
DEAREST  SA, 

We  arrived  at  this  city  last  night.  .  .  .  Nothing  can 
have  been  more  prosperous  than  our  whole  journey.  Not 
a  single  contretemps  and  my  compagnons  de  voyage  uniformly 
agreeable.  Everything  that  I  wished  has  been  realized,  and 
more  than  I  wished  granted.  I  have  got  all  the  kind  of 
knowledge  that  I  desired,  and  much  more,  but  that  much 
more,  I  am  convinced,  was  equally  necessary.  To  discover 
new  wants  and  find  them  instantly  gratified,  or  rather  to 
discover  unexpected  necessities  anticipated,  is  the  most  pleas- 
ing of  all  things.  From  Turin  we  travelled  to  Susa  and 
crossed  Mont  Cenis,  which,  considering  the  mountain  pass 
merely,  is  not  to  be  compared  to  the  Simplon.  It  is  vast 
without  being  sublime,  and  dreary  without  any  of  the  grand 
effects  of  desolation.  Some  points,  however,  are  wonderful ; 
a  small  lake  at  the  top  of  the  range  in  the  midst  of  eternal 
snow,  a  small  blue  lake  with  banks  of  white  marble,  attracted 
my  attentive  admiration.  It  is  about  half  a  mile  from  the 
road,  and  I  walked  there  while  our  trout  were  cooking.  Cenis, 
however,  leads  to  Savoy,  which  I  prefer  to  Switzerland.  The 
valley  of  the  Arc  is  even  finer  than  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  ; 
it  is  as  sublime,  and  yet  not  gloomy.  The  lofty  mountains 
are  covered  with  firs,  and  tipped  with  the  snows  of  centuries ; 
brilliant  cascades  falling  from  elevations  of  200  to  300  feet 
contrasted  with  the  variety  of  autumrial  tints,  and  banished 
monotony  without  disturbing  reflection.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  that  I  at  last  get  some  account  of  my  mother  — 
my  best  love  to  her ;  we  meet  soon.  My  father  says  that  he 
has  been  very  idle,  and  I  fear  from  his  tone  that  I  am  to 
believe  him.  I  have  been  just  the  reverse,  but  I  would  throw 
all  my  papers  into  the  Channel  only  to  hear  that  he  had 


1826]  HOME   AGAIN  111 

written  fifty  pages.  This  continued  inertia  makes  me  sad, 
but  I  have  hopes  that  if  we  get  on  without  fresh  vexations 
for  six  months  more  his  spirits  may  be  raised.  I  had  a  great 
row  about  the  portrait  of  Charles  1st,  but  was  quite  successful. 
The  consequence  is  that  I  have  got  a  new  miniature,1  in  which 
the  likeness  is  exactly  hit,  and  at  a  cheaper  rate. 
With  best  love  to  all, 

Most  affectionately  yours, 

B.  D. 


On  the  homeward  journey  through  France  Disraeli 
turned  aside  with  the  Austens  to  see  the  Layards  at 
school,  and  Sir  Henry  Layard,  then  a  boy  at  school, 
caught  a  passing  glimpse  of  his  future  chief.  '  I  still 
retain  a  vivid  recollection  of  his  appearance,  his  black 
curly  hair,  his  affected  manner,  and  his  somewhat  fan- 
tastic dress.'2  Mrs.  Austen's  letters  to  Sarah  Disraeli 
testify  to  his  possession  of  that  rare  virtue  —  excellence 
as  a  travelling  companion.  '  Your  brother,'  she  writes, 
'is  so  easily  pleased,  so  accommodating,  &o  amusing,  and 
so  actively  kind,  that  I  shall  always  reflect  upon  the 
domestic  part  of  our  journey  with  the  greatest  pleasure.' 
And,  again,  more  dubiously :  —  '  Your  brother  has  behaved 
excellently,  except  when  there  is  a  button,  or,  rather, 
buttons  to  be  put  on  his  shirt ;  tben  he  is  violently 
bad,  and  this  happens  almost  daily.  I  said  once,  "  They 
cannot  have  been  good  at  first "  ;  and  now  he  always 
threatens  to  "tell  my  Mother  you  have  abused  my 
linen.'" 

The  methodical  Austen  kept  careful  statistics  of  the 
journey.  They  posted  more  than  2,000  miles,  and 
Disraeli's  share  of  the  expenses,  including  about  .£20 
for  prints  and  other  purchases,  was  £  150. 

1  This  miniature  is  still  at  Hughenden. 

2  Layard's  Autobiography,  I.,  p.  18. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

ILLNESS  AND  DESPONDENCY 
1827-1830 

In  a  letter  from  Lyons  to  his  sister,  Disraeli,  as  we  saw, 
remarked  that  he  had  been  the  '  reverse  of  idle '  during 
his  Continental  journey  ;  a  few  months  after  his  return 
a  sequel  to  Vivian  G-rey  appeared  in  three  volumes,  and 
we  may  safely  assume  that  it  was  at  these  volumes  he 
had  been  working.  This  sequel,  or  'second  part,'  need 
not  long  detain  us.  In  Mr.  Gladstone's  diary  for  March 
20,  1874,  we  find  the  entry,  *  Finished  Vivian  G-rey. 
The  first  quarter  extremely  clever,  the  rest  trash.'1  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  never  a  sympathetic  critic  of  Disraeli's 
novels,  or  of  anything  else  for  which  Disraeli  was 
responsible,  and  perhaps  at  the  moment  of  that  entry  he 
was  less  likely  than  usual  to  be  in  a  sympathetic  mood. 
But  there  is  little  reason  to  quarrel  with  his  judgment 
on  the  present  occasion.  What  is  still  worth  reading 
in  the  five  original  volumes  of  Vivian  Grey  is  the  first. 
For  the  second  trash  is  hardly  too  strong  a  word ;  and  of 
the  remaining  three  volumes  almost  the  best  that  can  be 
said  is  that  they  are  void  of  offence. 

After  the  wreck  of  his  ambitious  plans,  Vivian  Grey, 
it  will  be  remembered,  took  refuge  in  Germany,  and  his 
adventures  in  that  country  are  the  subject  of  the  second 

1  Morley's  Life  of  Gladstone,  II.,  p.  499. 
112 


1827]  SEQUEL  TO  VIVIAN  GREY  113 

part.  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  Disraeli's  brooding 
temperament  that  he  should  thus  have  recurred  in  fancy 
to  the  scenes  he  had  visited  two  years  before,  leaving 
the  impressions  of  his  Italian  journey  for  future  use  and 
record.  Perhaps  the  romantic  genius  of  the  Rhine 
was  more  in  harmony  with  the  mood  in  which  he  now 
found  himself.  Ill-health  and  the  many  misfortunes  of 
the  last  two  years  had  given  to  his  thoughts  a  melancholy 
bias ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  then  to  find  when  we  meet 
Vivian  Grey  again  that  he  has  become  a  Byronic  exile 
who  makes  a  luxury  of  the  sorrow  which  he  believes  to 
be  incurable.  But  energy  is  of  the  essence  of  the  true 
Byronic  manner,  and  there  is  an  air  of  languor  over  these 
volumes  that  makes  them  ineffective.  The  sparkling 
and  audacious  hero  whom  we  knew  in  the  original  novel 
has  become  tame  and  lifeless,  and  if  there  is  less  extrava- 
gance now  we  feel  that  the  change  is  owing  to  loss  of 
vigour  by  the  author  rather  than  to  the  growth  of  that 
conscious  self-restraint  which  comes  with  maturing 
power.  '  The  springiness  of  my  mind  is  gone,'  cries 
Vivian  Grey  himself  in  the  agony  of  remorse  that  follows 
the  death  of  Cleveland ;  and  as  we  read  his  subsequent 
adventures  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  the  '  springiness ' 
of  his  creator's  mind  is  gone  no  less.  Now  and  then  we 
see  flashes  of  the  old  epigrammatic  spirit :  — '  Though  a 
great  liar  he  was  a  dull  man '  *;  *  Like  all  great  travellers 
I  have  seen  more  than  I  remember  and  remember  more 
than  I  have  seen.'2  Now  and  then  we  hear  the  welcome 
note  of  that  subtle  ironic  laughter  which  Disraeli  has 
always  in  store  for  his  own  most  cherished  affectations, 
and  which  goes  so  far  to  redeem  them  ;  as  when  he  mocks 
at  his  Byronic  enthusiasm  :  —  *  The  English  youth  .  .  . 
travel  now,  it  appears,  to  look  at  mountains  and  catch 
cold  in  spouting  trash  on  lakes  by  moonlight.'3  There 
are  isolated  episodes  that  show  vigour  and  invention ; 

1  Bk.  VI.,  ch.  2.  «  Bk.  VIH.  ch.  5.  «  Bk.  V.  ch.  8. 


VOL.     I I 


114  ILLNESS   AND  DESPONDENCY          [CHAP,  vm 

there  are  scenes  that  show  an  advance  in  descriptive 
power.  The  picture  of  life  at  the  little  German  Court 
of  Reisenberg  is  cleverly  painted,  and  lacks  neither  move- 
ment nor  variety.  But  the  book  as  a  whole  is  flat  and 
dull,  and  the  story  leads  to  nothing.  Our  interest  hap 
no  sooner  been  awakened  in  a  character  or  a  situat;  ii 
than  we  are  whisked  away  to  something  else,  and  the 
result  is  a  novel  which  is  fragmentary  and  inconsecutive, 
and  always  unsatisfying.  The  author  in  fact  was  not 
sufficiently  recovered  from  the  strain  of  the  previous  year 
for  a  fresh  creative  effort. 

The  most  interesting  character  in  the  book  is  Becken- 
dorff,  the  Prime  Minister  of  Reisenberg,  Disraeli's  first 
attempt  at  a  finished  portrait  of  a  statesman.  Becken- 
dorff  is  a  man  of  plebeian  origin  who  has  raised  himself 
to  power  by  the  force  of  his  own  'master-mind.'  He  is 
of  a  type  that  recurs  more  than  once  in  Disraeli's  other 
novels,  and  is  made  the  medium  for  the  exposition  of 
some  of  Disraeli's  favourite  doctrines.  '  Fate,  Destiny, 
Chance,  particular  and  special  Providence  —  idle  words. 
Dismiss  them  all,  Sir!  A  man's  Fate  is  his  own  temper.' 
'  Man  is  not  the  creature  of  circumstances.  Circum- 
stances are  the  creatures  of  men.  We  are  free  agents, 
and  man  is  more  powerful  than  matter.'  'No  con- 
juncture can  possibly  occur,  however  fearful,  however 
tremendous  it  may  appear,  from  which  a  man,  by  his 
own  energy,  may  not  extricate  himself.'1  In  Beckendorff 
Vivian  Grey  sees  a  man  with  his  own  principles  of  conduct 
whose  ambition  has  been  crowned  with  success. 

Apparently  the  philosophy  on  which  Beckendorff  had 
regulated  his  extraordinary  career  was  exactly  the  same 
with  which  he  himself,  Vivian  Grey,  had  started  in  life; 
which  he  had  found  so  fatal  in  its  consequences;  which  he 
believed  to  be  so  vain  in  its  principles.  How  was  this  ? 
What  radical  error  had  he  committed?  It  required  little 
consideration.  Thirty,  and  more  than  thirty,  years  had 
passed  over  the  head  of  Beckendorff,  ere  the  world  felt  his 
power,  or  indeed  was  conscious  of  his  existence.  A  deep 

1  Bk.  VI.  ch.  7. 


1827]  BECKENDORFF  115 

student  not  only  of  man  in  detail  but  of  men  in  groups  .  .  . 
when  that  opportunity,  which  in  this  world  comes  to  all  men, 
occurred  to  Beckendorff,  he  was  prepared.  With  acquire- 
ments equal  to  his  genius,  Beckendorff  depended  only  upon 
himself,  and  succeeded.  Vivian  Grey,  with  a  mind  inferior 
to  no  man's,  dashed  on  the  stage,  in  years  a  boy,  though  in 
feelings  a  man.  Brilliant  as  might  have  been  his  genius, 
his  acquirements  necessarily  were  insufficient.  He  could  not 
deperd  only  upon  himself;  a  consequent  necessity  arose  to 
have  recourse  to  the  assistance  of  others ;  to  inspire  them  with 
feelings  which  they  could  not  share  ;  and  humour  and  manage 
the  petty  weaknesses  which  he  himself  could  not  experience. 
His  colleagues  were  at  the  same  time  to  work  for  the  gratifica- 
tion of  their  own  private  interests,  the  most  palpable  of  all 
abstract  things ;  and  to  carry  into  execution  a  great  purpose 
which  their  feeble  minds,  interested  only  by  the  first  point, 
cared  not  to  comprehend.  The  unnatural  combination  failed ; 
and  its  originator  fell.  To  believe  that  he  could  recur  again 
to  the  hopes,  the  feelings,  the  pursuits  of  his  boyhood,  he  felt 
to  be  the  vainest  of  delusions.1 

The  passage  throws  an  illuminating  flash  on  some  of 
Disraeli's  most  cherished  ideals  of  character,  and  on  the 
significance  of  Vivian  G-rey  in  relation  to  those  ideals ; 
and  incidentally  it  makes  visible  the  clouds  of  despond- 
ency which  were  now  settling  upon  Disraeli's  mind  as 
they  had  settled  upon  his  hero's. 

It  was  many  a  long  day  before  the  clouds  finally 
lifted.  The  three  years  that  followed  the  publication  of 
the  Second  Part  of  Vivian  Ghrey  are  almost  a  blank  in 
Disraeli's  life.  As  he  had  now  definitely  renounced  the 
intention  of  becoming  a  solicitor,  it  was  decided  that  he 
should  at  least  formally  qualify  for  the  other  branch  of 
the  legal  profession ;  and  in  April,  1827,  he  was  entered 
at  Lincoln's  Inn  with  a  view,  in  due  course,  to  being 
called  to  the  Bar.  He  seems  to  have  kept  his  terms 
regularly  for  nearly  a  couple  of  years,  but  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  beyond  eating  his  dinners  and  paying 
his  dues  he  gave  any  serious  labour  to  preparation  for 
a  barrister's  career.  During  all  this  time,  in  fact,  a 
mysterious  disease  held  him  in  its  grip  and  paralysed 

i  Bk.  VII.  oh.  l. 


116  ILLNESS   AND   DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  via 

his  energies.  In  the  summer  of  1827  we  hear  of  him 
seriously  ill  at  Fyfield,  in  Oxfordshire,  where  the 
Disraelis  and  the  Austens  were  spending  their  holidays 
together.  In  the  summer  of  1828  he  is  ill  again  and  with 
his  family  at  Lyme  Regis,  in  Dorset.  '  I  am  at  present 
quite  idle,'  he  says  in  a  letter  to  Sharon  Turner  in  March, 
1828,  'being  at  this  moment  slowly  recovering  from  one 
of  those  tremendous  disorganisations  which  happen  to 
all  men  at  some  period  of  their  lives,  and  which  are 
perhaps  equally  necessary  for  the  formation  of  both  body 
and  constitution.  Whether  I  shall  ever  do  anything 
which  may  mark  me  out  from  the  crowd,  I  know  not. 
I  am  one  of  those  to  whom  moderate  reputation  can  give 
no  pleasure,  and  who  in  all  probability  am  incapable  of 
achieving  a  great  one.'  '  My  son's  life,'  writes  Isaac 
D'Israeli  to  a  friend  in  January,  1829,  '  within  the  last 
year  and  a  half,  with  a  very  slight  exception,  has  been 
a  blank  in  his  existence.  His  complaint  is  one  of  those 
perplexing  cases  which  remain  uncertain  and  obscure, 
till  they  are  finally  got  rid  of.  Meanwhile  patience 
and  resignation  must  be  his  lot  —  two  drugs  in  human 
life,  bitter  of  digestion,  in  an  ardent  and  excitable  mind.' 
Ten  years  later  a  doctor  who  had  attended  him  in  this 
illness  described  the  complaint  as  '  chronic  inflammation 
of  the  membranes  of  the  brain,'  adding  that  his  patient 
had  made  a  perfect  recovery. 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

June  14, 1827. 
MY  DEAR  AUSTEN, 

It  has  given  me  great  pleasure  to  find  that  the  accounts 
from  you  this  morning  continue  favorable,  and  that  you 
have  arranged  for  a  further  enjoyment  of  your  native  air  — 
the  atmosphere  of  Ramsgate,  that  glory  of  Kent  and  first  of 
watering  places  and  worthy  rival  of  Ems  and  Wiesbaden. 
As,  however,  you  have  postponed  your  return,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  writing  to  you,  if  it  be  only  to  inform  you  of  my 
existence  and  that  I  continue  just  'as  ill'  as  ever.  Little 
else  have  I  to  tell  you,  being  in  the  situation  of  those  youthful 
jackanapes  at  school  who  write  home  to  their  parents  every 


1828]  POPANILLA  117 

week  to  tell  them  that  they  have  nothing  to  say.  Your  good 
lady,  I  am  aware,  sends  you  daily  bulletins,  and  I  am  quite 
sure  that  nothing  certain  or  contingent  in  this  odd  world 
can  possibly  escape  the  comprehensive  circuit  of  her  lively 
pen.  .  .  . 

As  I  understand  you  are  in  want  of  a  book  I  send  you  the 
most  amusing  in  any  language  —  for  such  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  style  the  Memoirs  of  Benvenuto  Cellini.  It  is  many  years 
since  I  read  it,  and  I  was  then  enchanted.  I  should  have 
been  entranced  with  rapture  had  I  then  been  in  Italy.  The 
whole  scene  lies  at  Rome,  Florence  (especially),  Milan,  Padua, 
Paris,  Fontainebleau,  Lyons,  &c.  You  will  read  it  with  great 
delight  and  sympathise  with  all  his  scrapes.  The  part  that 
will  least  please  you  will  not  be  his  interesting  history  of  his 
Perseus — his  beautiful  Perseus  —  which  you  will  remember 
in  the  more  beautiful  Palazzo  Vecchio  at  Firenze.  .  .  . 
I  shall  be  very  happy  when  we  are  all  together  again  and 
at  Fy field.  .  .  .  Jem  is  richer  than  ever  and  struts  about 
town  in  a  kind  of  cloth  shooting  jacket  made  by  the  cele- 
brated Hyde  of  Winchester  —  almost  as  celebrated  as  a  tailor 
as  Dr.  Chard  is  as  a  musician.  In  this  quaint  costume,  with 
the  additional  assistance  of  a  sporting  handkerchief,  he  looks 
very  much  like  one  of  those  elegant,  half  blackguard,  half 
gentleman  speculators  in  horseflesh  who  crowd  Winchester 
market  and  dine  at  the  'good  ordinary  at  two  o'clock,'  for 
which  great  grub,  if  you  remember,  the  bell  rang  loud  and 
long  as  we  crossed  from  the  Cathedral. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

B.  D. 

In  some  interval  of  comparative  health  during  the 
first  year  of  his  illness,  Disraeli  recurred  to  the  idea  of 
a  satire  on  contemporary  society,  which  he  had  attempted 
to  carry  into  execution  in  his  twentieth  year  ;  and  '  The 
Adventures  of  Mr.  Aylmer  Papillon,'  which  had  been 
rejected  by  John  Murray,  soon  grew  into  The  Voyage 
of  Captain  Popanilla,  which  was  accepted  by  Colburn 
and  was  given  to  the  world  as  the  work  of  'The  author 
of  Vivian  G-rey'1  in  the  late  spring  of  the  year  1828.  The 
main  object  of  the  piece  is  to  ridicule  the  then  rising 
sect  of  the  Utilitarians.  Popanilla  is  a  native  of  the  Isle 
of  Fantaisie,  an  earthly  paradise  in  the  Indian  Ocean, 
where  men  lead  lives  of  careless  happiness  amid  the 


118  ILLNESS  AND   DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  vm 

resources  provided  by  a  bountiful  nature.  Finding  on 
the  seashore  a  box  of  books  crammed  with  useful  know- 
ledge he  learns  from  them  that  his  countrymen  are  nothing 
more  than  k  a  horde  of  useless  savages '  ;  and  full  of  his 
new  conception  of  the  blessings  of  civilisation  in  the 
Utilitarian  sense, he  endeavours  to  make  converts  of  the 
King  and  people  of  the  island.  He  talks  to  them  '  of 
men  in  a  savage  state,  the  origin  of  society,  and  the  ele- 
ments of  the  social  compact  in  sentences  which  would 
not  have  disgraced  the  mellifluous  pen  of  Bentham.' 
He  shows  them  that  '  the  interests  of  the  body  are  alone 
to  be  considered  and  not  those  of  the  individual,  and  that 
a  nation  might  be  extremely  happy,  extremely  powerful, 
and  extremely  rich,  although  every  individual  member 
of  it  might  at  the  same  time  be  miserable,  dependent, 
and  in  debt.'  If  they  will  only  adopt  his  principles 
and  carry  out  his  schemes  of  development,  '  no  long  time 
could  elapse  ere,  instead  of  passing  their  lives  in  a  state 
of  unprofitable  ease  and  useless  enjoyment,  they  might 
reasonably  expect  to  be  the  terror  and  astonishment  of 
the  universe,  and  to  be  able  to  annoy  every  nation  of  any 
consequence.' 

Finally  Popanilla  makes  himself  so  much  of  a  nuisance 
that  the  King  to  get  rid  of  him  ironically  professes  himself 
a  convert  and  appoints  him  to  the  command  of  an 
expedition  for  the  extension  of  the  international  relations 
of  the  island.  *  As  the  axiom  of  your  school  seems  to  be 
that  everything  can  be  made  perfect  at  once,  without 
time,  without  experience,  without  practice,  and  without 
preparation,  I  have  no  doubt,  with  the  aid  of  a  treatise 
or  two,  you  will  make  a  consummate  naval  commander, 
although  you  have  never  been  at  sea  in  the  whole  course 
of  your  life.  Farewell,  Captain  Popanilla  ! '  Popanilla 
is  launched  alone  upon  the  waters,  but  after  giving  himself 
up  for  lost  is  carried  by  a  storm  to  the  great  city  of 
Hubbabub,  which  is  the  capital  of  the  island  of  Vraibleusia, 
the  most  famous  island  in  the  world,  and  a  paradise  of 
wealth  and  freedom,  and  also  of  competition.  Henceforth 


1828]  THE   UTILITARIANS  119 

the  piece  is  a  satire  on  English  social  life  and  the  English 
Constitution.  It  is  not  very  deep,  it  abounds  in  crudities 
and  at  times  it  is  a  little  wearisome  ;  but  it  is  worth 
reading  still  as  Disraeli's  first  political  essay.  In  so  far 
as  his  political  faith  in  the  form  which  it  ultimately 
assumed  was  the  product  of  temperament,  its  main 
features  are  already  visible  :  on  the  one  hand,  the  deep- 
seated  popular  sympathies  and  the  essentially  liberal 
outlook  ;  on  the  other,  the  instinctive  aversion  of  a  mind 
imbued  with  the  historic  spirit  and  full  of  an  imaginative 
sense  of  the  romance  and  mystery  of  life  from  the  hard  and 
self-sufficing  dogmatism,  the  cramped  philosophy,  and 
somewhat  repellent  ideals  of  the  school  of  thought  which 
was  becoming  dominant  in  England.  Needless  to  say, 
Disraeli  was  very  far  from  having  sounded  the  depths  of 
Utilitarianism,  and  made  no  attempt  to  do  justice  to  what 
was  best  in  the  teaching  of  the  Benthamites  ;  between 
them  and  one  of  his  romantic  temper  warfare  was  in- 
evitable, and  he  struck  at  them  instinctively.  Needless 
also  to  say,  the  outlines  of  his  own  philosophy  are  not  yet 
firmly  drawn  nor  his  views  on  questions  of  party  politics 
consistently  elaborated.  No  one  therefore  need  be 
surprised  to  find  the  future  leader  of  the  Protectionists 
ridiculing  the  Corn  Laws,  or  the  future  founder  of 
Imperialism  ridiculing  the  Colonial  system  ;  in  either 
case  quite  heedless  of  the  fact  that  he  was  aligning 
himself  with  the  school  which  was  the  immediate  object 
of  his  ridicule  in  an  attack  upon  those  who  were  to  be  his 
own  future  allies.  John  Bright,  it  is  said, J  greatly  admired 
Popanilla,  and  in  these  vagaries  of  the  author  we  may 
see  perhaps  in  part  the  reason  for  his  admiration. 

Popanilla  appeared  with  a  dedication  to  Plumer  Ward, 
who  showed  himself  no  niggard  in  his  appreciation  of  the 
compliment.  *  Since  the  days  of  Swift  and  Voltaire,' 
he  wrote,  *  I  have  not  read  anything  so  witty.  Je  riais 
aux  e"clats  and  made  others  do  so  too.  In  my  opinion  it 

1  By  Mr.  George  Kussell  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  for  January, 
1907. 


120  ILLNESS  AND   DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  vin 

is  equal  to  the  Tale  of  a  Tub  and  Candide,  and  superior  to 
Zadig  and  BaboukS  The  critics,  however,  took  a  more 
moderate  view  of  the  merits  of  the  piece,  and  the  public, 
who  perhaps  expected  stronger  meat  from  the  author  of 
Vivian  Grrey,  gave  it  little  attention. 

In  the  course  of  many  holiday  visits  the  Disraelis 
had  tasted  the  pleasures  of  country  life  in  Bucks,  and  in 
the  summer  of  1829  they  gave  up  their  London  residence 
altogether  and  moved  out  to  Bradenham,  an  old  manor 
house  on  the  slopes  of  the  Chilterns,  a  few  miles  to  the 
west  of  the  town  of  High  Wycombe.  'The  precarious 
health  of  several  members  of  my  family,'  writes  D'Israeli 
the  elder  to  Southey,  '  has  decided  me  on  this  movement, 
and  I  quit  London  with  all  its  hourly  seductions.  My 
House  is  described  by  the  "Nourrisse  of  Antiquitie," 
venerable  Camden,  as  built  by  the  Lord  Windsor  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII  —  for  the  salubrity  of  the  soil  and 
air.'  In  this  peaceful  spot  Isaac  D'Israeli  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  days.  Half  a  century  after  it  first 
became  their  home,  when  his  own  life  was  drawing  to  a 
close,  his  son's  thoughts  recurred  to  the  scene  associated 
with  his  father's  declining  years,  and  in  Endymion  he 
sketched  it  with  loving  fidelity. 

At  the  foot  of  the  Berkshire  Downs  [Chiltern  Hills],  and 
itself  on  a  gentle  elevation,  there  is  an  old  hall  with  gable 
ends  and  lattice  windows,  standing  in  grounds  which  once 
were  stately,  and  where  there  are  yet  glade-like  terraces  of  yew 
trees,  which  give  an  air  of  dignity  to  a  neglected  scene.  In  the 
front  of  the  hall  huge  gates  of  iron,  highly  wrought,  and 
bearing  an  ancient  date  as  well  as  the  shield  of  a  noble  house, 
opened  on  a  village  green,  round  which  were  clustered  the 
cottages  of  the  parish  with  only  one  exception,  and  that  was 
the  vicarage  house,  a  modern  building,  not  without  taste, 
surrounded  by  a  small  but  brilliant  garden.  The  church  was 
contiguous  to  the  hall,  and  had  been  raised  by  the  lord  on  a 
portion  of  his  domain.  Behind  the  hall  and  its  enclosure  the 
country  was  common  land  but  picturesque.  It  had  once  been 
a  beech  forest,  and  though  the  timber  had  been  greatly  cleared, 
the  green  land  was  still  occasionally  dotted,  sometimes  with 


1829]  BRADENHAM  121 

groups  and  sometimes  with  single  trees,  while  the  juniper 
which  here  abounded,  and  rose  to  a  great  height,  gave  a  rich 
wildness  to  the  scene  and  sustained  its  forest  character.1 

For  nearly  twelve  months,  with  rare  and  brief  visits  to 
London,  Disraeli  lived  quietly  at  Bradenham.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  trials  of  bad  health  the  burden  of  his  debts 
weighed  heavily  upon  him.  '  I  am  desperately  ill,'  he 
writes  to  Austen  in  November,  '  and  shall  be  in  town  in 

a  day  or  two,  incognito  of  course Tell 

Madam  I  shall  call  upon  her  if  possible,  but  I  can  only 
call,  because  I  am  necessarily  betrayed  by  her  and  in 
consequence  "  the  heathen  rage  most  furiously." '  The 
rage  of  the  heathen  did  not,  however,  hinder  his  framing 
large  projects  which  called  for  more  expenditure.  He 
had  somehow  conceived  the  ambition  of  acquiring  an 
estate  and  settling  down  to  the  life  of  a  country  gentleman, 
and  at  this  very  moment  was  pressing  the  scheme  upon 
his  father.  But  Isaac  D'Israeli  was  frightened  by  the 
prevailing  agricultural  depression,  and  declined  to  invest 
his  money  on  the  advice  of  a  son  who  confesses  that  he 
had  '  more  than  once  interfered  with  his  affairs  and  never 
with  any  particular  success.'  The  son,  however,  had 
another  project.  A  year  or  more  before  he  had  been 
attracted  by  the  career  of  David  Alroy,  the  Jewish  hero 
of  the  twelfth  century,  and  he  had  begun  the  novel  on  this 
subject  which  he  completed  and  published  some  years 
later ;  and  his  awakening  interest  in  the  history  of  his 
race  had  aroused  in  him  a  passionate  longing  to  seek  rest 
for  his  troubled  mind  and  body  in  the  East.  At  first 
his  father  would  not  hear  of  it. 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

BRADENHAM, 

Dec.  8,  1829. 
MY  DEAR  AUSTEN, 

.     .     .     I  am  sorry  to  say  that  my  other  and  still  more 

important  plan  prospers  as  badly.     I  have  partly  broken  it, 

and  it  was  at  once  fairly  knocked  on  the  head  in  a  calmer 

manner  than  I  should  have  expected  from  my  somewhat  rapid 

1  Endymion,  ch.  11. 


122  ILLNESS   AND   DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  via 

but  too  indulgent  sire.  But  I  will  not  quite  despair.  A 
sanguine  temper  supports  me  still.  There  is  yet  time,  and 
that,  according  to  the  great  Frederick,  is  everything.  The 
fact  is  I  ain 

'  Spellbound  within  the  clustering  Cyclades  ' 

and  go  I  must,  though  I  fear  I  must  hack  for  it.  A  literary 
prostitute  I  have  never  yet  been,  though  born  in  an  age  of 
literary  prostitution,  and  though  I  have  more  than  once  been 
subject  to  temptations.  .  .  .  Tempting  mother  Colburn! 
However,  as  Frederick  says,  I  have  yet  time,  and  I  may  be 
saved. 

Keep  this  letter  to  yourself  without  exception,  and  indeed 
all  I  write  to  you.  Though  generally  accused  of  uncom- 
municativeness,  I  like  a  gentle  chat  with  a  friend  provided 
it  be  strictly  confidential  and  he  be  a  tried  and  trusty  one  like 
yourself.  Women  are  delightful  creatures,  particularly  if 
they  be  pretty,  which  they  always  are ;  but  then  they  chatter 
—  they  can't  help  it  —  and  I  have  no  ambition  in  case  my 
dearest  project  fails  to  be  pointed  out  as  the  young  gentleman 
who  was  going  to  Constantinople.  Let  it  be  secret  as  the 
cave  of  the  winds,  and  then  perhaps  a  friendly  breeze  may  yet 
bear  me  to  Syria ! 

Farewell,  mon  ami, 

B.  D. 

By  the  bye,  I  advise  you  to  take  care  of  my  letters,  for  if 
I  become  half  as  famous  as  I  intend  to  be  you  may  sell  them 
for  ten  guineas  apiece  to  the  Keepsake  for  1840,  that  being  the 
price,  as  on  dit,  at  which  that  delicate  creature  D[ouglas] 
K[innaird]  furnishes  a  Byronic  epistle  to  the  Annuals. 

To  Mrs.  Austen. 

BKAUENHAM  HOUSE, 

March  1, 1830. 
MY  DEAR  MADAME, 

Your  repeated  kind  messages  require  my  personal  acknow- 
ledgment, and  deserve  something  better.  With  regard  to 
myself,  in  a  word,  I  cannot  be  worse.  With  regard  to  London, 
it  is  of  all  places  the  one,  in  my  present  situation,  least  suited 
to  me.  Solitude  and  silence  do  not  make  my  existence  easy, 
but  they  make  it  endurable. 

My  plans  about  leaving  England  are  more  unsettled  than 
ever.  I  anticipate  no  benefit  from  it,  nor  from  anything  else, 
but  I  am  desirous  of  quitting  England  that  I  may  lead  even 
a  more  recluse  life  than  I  do  at  present,  and  emancipate 
myself  from  perpetual  commiserations.  When  I  was  in 
town  last,  I  consulted  secretly  many  eminent  men.  I  received 


1830]  THE   YOUNG  DUKE  123 

from  them  no  consolation.  Without  any  exception  they 
approved  of  Mr.  Bol ton's  treatment,  though  they  were  not 
surprised  that  it  produced  no  benefit.  .  .  . 

I  grieve  to  say  my  hair  grows  very  badly,  and  I  think  more 
grey,  which  I  can  unfeiguedly  declare  occasions  me  more 
anguish  than  even  the  prospect  of  death. 

Yours  ever, 

B.  D. 

In  Popanilla  Disraeli  had  gone  out  of  his  way  to  ridi- 
cule the  novel  of  fashionable  life  ;  but  this  was  precisely 
the  novel  that  Colburn  and  the  public  wanted,  and  the 
outcome  apparently  of  Disraeli's  determination  to  hack 
was  that  he  began  The  Young  Duke.  By  the  end  of  March, 
1830,  he  had  nearly  finished,  and  he  came  to  town  with 
his  manuscript  in  quest  of  a  publisher.  ' It  is  a  series  of 
scenes,'  he  told  his  friend  Meredith,  '  every  one  of  which 
would  make  the  fortune  of  a  fashionable  novel  :  I  am 
confident  of  its  success,  and  that  it  will  complete  the 
corruption  of  the  public  taste.'  If  there  was  anything 
serious  in  this,  the  complacent  view  of  the  merits  of  his 
work  did  not  long  survive.  Colburn's  reader  told  him 
that  it  was  certain  to  be  severely  criticised  for  the 
egoism  and  other  sins  of  the  writer.  Lytton  Bulwer,  for 
whom  Pelham  had  won  celebrity  a  couple  of  years  before, 
sounded  the  same  note  of  warning.  Disraeli  and  he  had 
exchanged  volumes  in  the  previous  year,  and  a  corre- 
spondence had  sprung  up  between  them,  which  some- 
where about  this  time  ripened  into  personal  acquaintance. 
Bulwer  was  shown  the  manuscript,  and  was  not  sparing 
of  eulogy  ;  but  he  suggested  that  the  author's  judgment 
was  not  equal  to  his  genius,  that  if  he  had  attained  more 
than  the  excellences  of  Vivian  Chrey  he  had  not  sufficiently 
avoided  its  faults,  and  that  the  pruning  knife  might  well 
be  applied  to  the  many  flippancies  and  otiose  antitheses  of 
the  book.  The  sensitive  author  was  at  first  so  discouraged 
that  he  talked  of  casting  aside  the  work  altogether,  but 
money  was  needed,  and  a  bargain  was  soon  concluded 
with  Colburn,  who  gave  £500  for  the  book.  What  proved 


124  ILLNESS   AND  DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  vin 

even  more  attractive,  he  consented  to  pay  by  post-dated 
bills,  which  were  no  doubt  promptly  discounted;  and  in 
this  way  and  with  the  aid  of  a  friendly  advance  from 
Austen,  the  tour  in  the  East  at  last  became  possible. 
Meredith,  Disraeli's  companion  in  his  visit  to  the  Rhine, 
and  now  engaged  to  his  sister,  was  again  to  accompany 
him,  and  at  the  end  of  May  the  travellers  were  to  set  forth 
on  their  journey. 

An  entry  in  Meredith's  diary  during  Disraeli's  visit 
to  London  with  the  manuscript  of  The  Young  Duke 
gives  us  a  picture  that  is  worth  preserving. 

Mar.  29. — B.  D.  to  dine  with  me.  He  came  up  Kegent 
Street,  when  it  was  crowded,  in  his  blue  surtout,  a  pair 
of  military  light  blue  trousers,  black  stockings  with  red 
stripes,  and  shoes !  '  The  people,'  he  said,  '  quite  made 
way  for  me  as  I  passed.  It  was  like  the  opening  of  the  Red 
Sea,  which  I  now  perfectly  believe  from  experience.  Even 
well-dressed  people  stopped  to  look  at  me.'  I  should  think 
so !  He  was  in  excellent  spirits,  full  of  schemes  for  the  pro- 
jected journey  to  Stamboul  and  Jerusalem;  full,  as  usual, 
also  of  capital  stories,  but  he  could  make  a  story  out  of 
nothing. 

A  note  by  Disraeli  himself  deals  with  another  incident 
which  can  probably  be  referred  to  this  same  visit  to 
London. 

Just  at  the  commencement  of  the  spring  of  1830,  if  spring 
it  could  be  called,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Lytton  Bulwer, 
and  dined  with  him  at  his  house  in  Hertford  Street.  He 
was  just  married,  or  about  just  married :  a  year  or  two.  We 
were  both  of  us  then  quite  youths ;  about  four  and  twenty. 
I  met  three  men  at  dinner  of  much  the  same  standing;  all 
full  of  energy  and  ambition,  and  all  unknown  to  fame. 
Bulwer  and  I  had,  at  least,  written  something;  I  Vivian 
Grey,  and  he  two  or  three  years  afterwards  Pelham.  The 
other  three  were  Henry  Bulwer,  Charles  Villiers,  and 
Alexander  Cockburn.  Writing  this,  nearly  five  and  thirty 
years  afterwards,  it  is  curious  to  mark  what  has  been  the 
result  of  the  careers  of  these  five  young  men.  I  have  been 
twice  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons,  Edward  Bulwer  has 
been  Secretary  of  State,  Henry  Bulwer  is  at  this  moment 
H.M.  Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  Charles  Villiers  is  at 


1830]  LETTER   TO   EVANS  125 

this   moment  a  Cabinet   Minister,   and  Alexander   Cockburn 
is  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England.1 

Henry  Bulwer  has  also  left  his  recollections  of  this 
occasion.  Disraeli,  he  tells  us,  '  wore  green  velvet  trou- 
sers, a  canary  coloured  waistcoat,  low  shoes,  silver 
buckles,  lace  at  his  wrists,  and  his  hair  in  ringlets. 
.  .  If  on  leaving  the  table  we  had  been  severally 
taken  aside  and  asked  which  was  the  cleverest  of  the 
party  we  should  have  been  obliged  to  say  "  the  man  in  the 
green  velvet  trousers."  '2 

When  in  the  course  of  his  preparations  for  the  long 
journey  before  him  Disraeli  came  to  review  his  position 
and  affairs,  he  bethought  him  of  the  unlucky  partner  of 
his  boyish  speculations,  and  wrote  the  letter  that  follows. 

To  T.  M.  Evans. 

UNION  HOTEL,  COCKSPUB  ST., 

May  9,  1830. 
MY  DEAR  EVANS, 

We  have  been  too  long  silent.  It  has  been  my  fault,  but 
if  you  could  form  the  slightest  idea  of  the  severe  visitation 
under  which  I  have  been  long,  and  am  still,  suffering,  I 
am  confident  you  would  not  only  accept  my  excuses,  but 
sympathise  with  their  cause.  For  the  last  three  years  —  I 
will  not  talk  of  enjoyment  — life  has  not  afforded  me  a  moment's 
ease;  and  after  having  lived  in  perfect  solitude  for  nearly 
eighteen  months,  I  am  about  to  be  shipped  off  for  the  last 
resource  of  a  warmer  climate. 

To  leave  England  at  all,  particularly  in  the  state  in  which 
I  am,  is  to  me  most  distressing;  to  leave  it  without  finally 
arranging  my  distracted  affairs  costs  me  a  pang,  which  is 
indeed  bitter.  But  I  can  assure  you  at  this  moment,  when 
so  many  harrowing  interests  solicit  the  attention  of  my 
weakened  mind,  there  is  no  subject  on  which  I  oftener  think, 
than  our  past  relations,  and  no  person  who  more  constantly 
occurs  to  me  than  yourself. 

I  assure  you,  dear  Evans,  that  it  would  be  very  difficult 
to  find  one  who  is  really  more  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
another  than  I  am  in  yours,  and  although  you  may  perhaps 

1  There  is  an  obvious  reminiscence  of  this  party  in  the  dinner  given 
by  Mr.  Bertie  Tremaine  and  his  brother,  Mr.  Tremaine  Bertie,  in  chapter 
37  of  Endymion. 

2  Article  on  Lord  Beaconsfield  in  the  Enycl.  Brit. 


126  ILLNESS   AND   DESPONDENCY          [CHAP,  via 

doubt  the  sincerity  of  this  declaration,  I  nevertheless  make 
it.  It  would  be  a  great  consolation  for  me  if  before  my 
departure  I  could  hear  from  yourself  that  you  were  prospering 
in  the  world,  a  great  satisfaction  if  you  could  communicate 
to  me  with  the  candor  which  I  wish  to  be  the  characteristic 
of  our  letters. 

Although  I  have  not  been  fortunate  enough  in  finally 
arranging  my  affairs,  I  natter  myself  I  have  succeeded  in 
making  some  temporary  dispositions.  Nothing  of  importance 
has  been  done  with  M.,  but  he  is  inclined  to  wait  till  my 
return  if  possible,  and  if  he  cannot,  to  be  silent.  I  feel  less 
for  him  than  for  others,  because  I  now  see  too  well  what  was 
the  cause  of  all  our  errors,  and  curse  the  hour  he  practised, 
as  he  thought  so  cunningly,  upon  our  inexperienced  youth. 
But  this  only  to  yourself,  for  he  is  after  all  an  object  of  pity, 
and  I  would  to  God  that  I  could  do  something  for  him  more 
than  I  am  bound  tp  do. 

For  yourself,  who — most  unintentionally  on  my  part  — 
have  suffered  from  my  madness  —  it  is  for  you  I  feel,  indeed 
keenly,  you,  whose  generous  and  manly  soul  I  have  ever 
honored,  and  credit  me,  have  ever  done  justice  to.  All  I 
can  say  is,  that  the  first  step  I  take,  when  the  power  is  mine, 
shall  be  in  your  favor,  and  that  sooner,  or  later,  the  power 
will  be  mine;  and  that,  some  day  or  other,  we  may  look  back 
to  these  early  adventures,  rather  as  matter  of  philosophical 
speculation  than  individual  sorrow,  I  confidently  believe. 

For  there  is  something  within  me,  which,  in  spite  of  all 
the  dicta  of  the  faculty,  and  in  the  face  of  the  prostrate 
state  in  which  I  lie,  whispers  to  me  I  shall  yet  weather 
this  fearful  storm,  and  that  a  more  prosperous  career  may 
yet  open  to  me. 

My  father  has  quitted  London,  and  now  resides  at 
Bradenham  House,  near  Wycombe,  Bucks  —  a  place  where 
I  hope  some  day  to  see  you,  though  at  present  I  am  only 
the  inmate  of  an  unsocial  hotel,  and  preparing  for  my 
embarkation  in  the  course  of  this  current  month.  Anything 
addressed  to  me  at  the  Union  will  reach  one  who  will  always 
consider  himself 

Your  sincere  friend, 

B.  D. 

Disraeli  at  first  had  thought  of  making  The  Young 
Duke  an  occasion  for  the  resumption  of  relations  with 
his  old  friend  Murray,  and  during  his  visit  to  London 
in  March  he  sought  an  interview  with  that  purpose. 
'It  has  always,'  he  explained,  'been  my  wish,  if  it  ever 


1830]  DISRAELI  AND  MURRAY  127 

were  my  fate  to  write  anything  calculated  to  arrest 
public  attention,  that  you  should  be  the  organ  of  intro- 
ducing it  to  public  notice.  If  you  feel  any  inclination 
to  pursue  this  affair,  act  as  you  like,  and  fix  upon  any 
critic  you  please.  I  have  no  objection  to  Mr.  Lockhart, 
who  is  certainly  an  able  one,  and  is,  I  believe,  influenced 
by  no  undue  partiality  towards  me '  Murray  icily  de- 
clined the  interview,  but  '  Mr.  Disraeli  was  assured ' 
that  if  he  cared  to  submit  his  manuscript  '  the  proposal 
would  be  entertained  with  the  strictest  honour  and 
impartiality.'  Disraeli  took  the  manuscript  to  Colburn, 
but  before  he  left  for  the  East  he  wrote  the  following 
letter  :  — 

To  John  Murray. 

BKADENHAM,  BUCKS, 

May  27,  1830. 

SIB, 

I  am  unwilling  to  leave  England,  which  I  do  on  Saturday, 
without  noticing  your  last  communication,  because  I  should 
regret  very  much  if  you  were  to  misconceive  the  motives 
which  actuated  me  in  not  complying  with  the  suggestion 
therein  contained.  I  can  assure  you  I  leave  in  perfect 
confidence  both  in  your  'honor'  and  your  'impartiality,' 
for  the  first  I  have  never  doubted,  and  the  second  it  is  your 
interest  to  exercise. 

The  truth  is,  my  friend  and  myself  differed  in  the  estimate 
of  the  MS.  alluded  to,  and  while  I  felt  justified,  from  his 
opinion,  in  submitting  it  to  your  judgment,  I  felt  it  due  to 
my  own  to  explain  verbally  the  contending  views  of  the 
case,  for  reasons  which  must  be  obvious. 

As  you  forced  me  to  decide,  I  decided  as  I  thought  most 
prudently.  The  work  is  one  which,  I  dare  say,  would  neither 
disgrace  you  to  publish,  nor  me  to  write;  but  it  is  not  the 
kind  of  production  which  should  recommence  our  connection, 
or  be  introduced  to  the  world  by  the  publisher  of  Byron  and 
Anastasius. 

I  am  now  about  to  leave  England  for  an  indefinite,  perhaps 
a  long  period.  When  I  return,  if  I  do  return,  I  trust  it  will 
be  in  my  power  for  the  third  time 1  to  endeavour  that  you 
should  be  the  means  of  submitting  my  works  to  the  public. 

1  The  first  attempt,  no  doubt,  had  been  with  the  manuscript  of 
Aylmer  Papillon. 


128  ILLNESS  AND  DESPONDENCY        [CHAP,  vni 

For  this  I  shall  be  ever  ready  to  make  great  sacrifices,  and 
let  me  therefore  hope  that  when  I  next  offer  my  volumes 
to  your  examination,  like  the  Sibylline  Books,  their  inspiration 
may  at  length  be  recognised. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

B.    DlSRAELI.1 

The  novel  which  was  thus  thought  unworthy  of  presen- 
tation by  the  publisher  of  Byron  is  a  picture  at  once 
flashy  and  conventional  of  a  society  of  which  Disraeli  had 
little  direct  knowledge  when  he  wrote.  '  The  Young  Duke!' 
exclaimed  his  father,  according  to  a  family  tradition, 
when  he  first  heard  of  the  book.  '  What  does  Ben  know 
of  dukes  ? ' 2  The  Duke  of  St.  James  himself  is  not  wholly 
uninteresting,  for  he  possesses  certain  qualities  which  ap- 
pear again  and  again  in  the  heroes  of  Disraeli's  novels, 
and  appear  because  they  are  reflected  from  the  author's 
own  personality.  'He  was  a  sublime  coxcomb,  one  of 
those  rare  characters  whose  finished  manner  and  shrewd 
sense  combined  prevent  their  conceit  from  being  con- 
temptible.' But  his  career  of  dissipation  and  prodigality 
soon  grows  wearisome,  and  that  in  some  degree  through 
the  unskilfulness  of  the  author.  In  the  well-known  gam- 
bling scene  at  Brighton  he  writes  with  genuine  power; 
but  too  often  where  he  endeavours  to  produce  an  ef- 
fect he  falls  into  more  extravagance.  The  figure  of 
May  Dacre,  however,  partially  redeems  the  book,  even 
as  she  redeemed  the  hero.  She  is  one  of  the  most 
charming  of  Disraeli's  women,  a  forerunner  of  Sybil,  and 
like  Sybil,  it  is  worthy  of  note,  an  adherent  of  '  the  old 
faith.'  The  Young  Duke  finally  wins  her  heart  by  a 

1  Smiles,  II.,  pp.  332-334. 

2  An  attempt  indeed  has  been   made   to  show  that   Disraeli   had 
shared  the  life  of  the  young  bucks  whose  dissipations  he   professes 
to  describe  ;  but  there  is  no  real    evidence    to    support   the    theory, 
and    his    own    testimony   is    decisive    against    it.      '  Until    my  return 
from  the  East  on  the  eve  of  the  '32  election,'  he  once  said  to  Lord 
Rowton,   '  I  had   lived   a   very  secluded   life,   and  mixed   not  at   all 
with  the  world.' 


1830]  THE   YOUNG   DUKE  129 

speech  in  favour  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  in  which  of 
course  she  was  an  enthusiastic  believer ;  and  so  clearly  in 
1829  was  Disraeli  himself.  This  is  not  the  only  indica- 
tion in  the  novel  of  a  steady  movement  of  his  mind  to- 
wards an  interest  in  political  questions.  He  treats  us  in 
one  chapter  to  a  disquisition  on  eloquence,  and  illustrates 
it  with  miniature  literary  sketches  of  the  leading  orators 
in  Parliament  which  are  both  interesting  and  character- 
istic in  themselves  and  significant  as  an  index  to  the  pre- 
occupations of  the  artist's  mind. 


I  like  a  good  debate;  and,  when  a  stripling,  used  often 
to  be  stifled  in  the  Gallery,  or  enjoy  the  easier  privileges  of  a 
member's  son.  I  like,  I  say,  a  good  debate,  and  have  no 
objection  to  a  due  mixture  of  bores,  which  are  a  relief.  I 
remember  none  of  the  giants  of  former  days;  but  I  have  heard 
Canning.  He  was  a  consummate  rhetorician ;  but  there  seemed 
to  me  a  dash  of  commonplace  in  all  that  he  said,  and  fre- 
quent indications  of  the  absence  of  an  original  mind.  To 
the  last,  he  never  got  clear  of  '  Good  God,  Sir ! '  and  all 
the  other  hackneyed  ejaculations  of  his  youthful  debating 
clubs.  The  most  commanding  speaker  that  I  ever  listened 
to  is,  I  think,  Sir  Francis  Burdett.  I  never  heard  him  in  the 
House,  —  but  at  an  election.  He  was  full  of  music,  grace,  and 
dignity,  even  amid  all  the  vulgar  tumult ;  and,  unlike  all  mob 
orators,  raised  the  taste  of  the  populace  to  him,  instead  of 
lowering  his  own  to  theirs. 

Mr.  Brougham,  at  present,  reigns  paramount  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  I  think  the  lawyer  has  spoiled  the  statesman. 
He  is  said  to  have  very  great  powers  of  sarcasm.  From  what 
I  have  observed  there,  I  should  think  very  little  ones  would  be 
quite  sufficient.  Many  a  sneer  withers  in  those  walls,  which 
would  scarcely,  I  think,  blight  a  currant-bush  out  of  them ; 
and  I  have  seen  the  House  convulsed  with  raillery  which,  in 
other  society,  would  infallibly  settle  the  rallier  to  be  a  bore 
beyond  all  tolerance.  Even  an  idiot  can  raise  a  smile.  They 
are  so  good-natured,  or  find  it  so  dull.  .  .  . 

I  hear  that  Mr.  Babington  Macaulay  is  to  be  returned. 
If  he  speak  half  as  well  as  he  writes,  the  House  will  be  in 
fashion  again.  I  fear  that  he  is  one  of  those  who,  like  the 
individual  whom  he  has  most  studied,  will  '  give  up  to  party 
what  was  meant  for  mankind.'  At  any  rate,  he  must  get  rid 
of  his  rabidity.  He  writes  now  on  all  subjects,  as  if  he  cer- 

VOL.  I K 


130  ILLNESS   AND   DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  vm 

tainly  intended  to  be  a  renegade,  and  was  determined  to  make 
the  contrast  complete. 

Mr.  Peel  is  the  model  of  a  minister,  and  improves  as  a 
speaker;  though,  like  most  of  the  rest,  he  is  fluent  without 
the  least  style.  He  should  not  get  so  often  in  a  passion 
either,  or,  if  he  do,  should  not  get  out  of  one  so  easily. 
His  sweet  apologies  are  cloying.  His  candour  —  he  will  do 
well  to  get  rid  of  that.  He  can  make  a  present  of  it  to  Mr. 
Huskisson.  .  .  . 

In  the  Lords,  I  admire  the  Duke.  The  readiness  with 
which  he  has  adopted  the  air  of  a  debater,  shows  the  man 
of  genius.  There  is  a  gruff,  husky  sort  of  a  downright 
Montaignish  naivete  about  him,  which  is  quaint,  unusual,  and 
tells.  You  plainly  perceive  that  he  is  determined  to  be  a 
civilian ;  and  he  is  as  offended  if  you  drop  a  hint  that  he 
occasionally  wears  a  uniform,  as  a  servant  on  a  holiday,  if 
you  mention  the  word  livery.1 

In  the  matter  of  party  allegiance  Disraeli  in  the  same 
chapter  professes  himself  a  Gallic. 

Am  I  a  Whig  or  a  Tory?  I  forget.  As  for  the  Tories, 
I  admire  antiquity,  particularly  a  ruin ;  even  the  relics  of  the 
Temple  of  Intolerance  have  a  charm.  I  think  I  am  a  Tory. 
But  then  the  Whigs  give  such  good  dinners,  and  are  the  most 
amusing.  I  think  I  am  a  Whig ;  but  then  the  Tories  are  so 
moral,  and  morality  is  my  forte ;  I  must  be  a  Tory.  But  the 
Whigs  dress  so  much  better ;  and  an  ill-dressed  party,  like  an 
ill-dressed  man,  must  be  wrong.  Yes  !  I  am  a  decided  Whig. 

And  yet 1  feel  like  Garrick  between  Tragedy  and  Comedy. 

I  think  I  will  be  a  Whig  and  Tory  alternate  nights,  and  then 
both  will  be  pleased ;  or  I  have  no  objection,  according  to  the 
fashion  of  the  day,  to  take  a  place  under  a  Tory  ministry,  pro- 
vided I  may  vote  against  them. 

The  Young  Duke  is  remarkable  for  its  long  and  frequent 
digressions  of  autobiographic  interest.  It  is  dangerous 
indeed,  as  it  always  is  in  Disraeli's  case,  to  interpret  these 
too  literally.  Some  of  the  personal  touches  are  obviously 
deliberate  mystifications,  the  pretence,  for  instance,  above 
that  his  father  was  a  member  of  Parliament  or  elsewhere 
that  he  himself  was  writing  the  novel  in  Rome.  In  others 
there  is  probably  a  good  deal  of  Byronic  exaggeration. 
It  was  the  fashion  in  those  days  for  a  clever  youth  to  pose 
*  Bk.  v.  ch.  6. 


1830]  THE  AUTHOR'S  DIGRESSIONS  131 

as  the  victim  of  despair,  and  though  Disraeli's  illness  was 
real  enough,  'there  certainly  is  a  dark  delight  in  being 
miserable,'  as  he  says  himself  in  the  book,  and  we  need  not 
suppose  that  he  took  such  a  hopeless  view  of  his  future  as 
in  some  passages  he  would  have  us  believe. 

I  have  lost  the  power  of  conveying  what  I  feel,  if  indeed 
that  power  were  ever  mine.  I  write  with  an  aching  head  and 
quivering  hand;  yet  I  must  write  if  but  to  break  the  soli- 
tude.1 

The  drooping  pen  falls  from  my  powerless  hand,  and  I  feel 
—  I  keenly  feel  myself  what  indeed  I  am  —  far  the  most  pros- 
trate of  a  fallen  race ! 2 

Where  are  now  my  deeds  and  aspirations,  and  where  the 
fame  I  dreamed  of  when  a  boy  ?  I  find  the  world  just  slipping 
through  my  fingers,  and  cannot  grasp  the  jewel  ere  it  falls. 
I  quit  an  earth,  where  none  will  ever  miss  me,  save  those 
whose  blood  requires  no  laurels  to  make  them  love  my  memory. 
My  life  has  been  a  blunder  and  a  blank,  and  all  ends  by  my 
adding  one  more  slight  ghost  to  the  shadowy  realm  of  fatal 
precocity  ! 1 

What  I  am,  I  know  not,  nor  do  I  care.  I  have  that  within 
me,  which  man  can  neither  give  nor  take  away,  which  can 
throw  light  on  the  darkest  passages  of  life,  and  draw,  from  a 
discordant  world,  a  melody  divine.  For  it  I  would  live,  and 
for  it  alone.  Oh  !  my  soul,  must  we  then  part !  Is  this  the  end 
of  all  our  conceptions,  all  our  musings,  our  panting  thoughts, 
our  gay  fancies,  our  bright  imaginings,  our  delicious  reveries, 
and  exquisite  communing  ?  Is  this  the  end,  the  great  and  full 
result,  of  all  our  sweet  society  ?  I  care  not  for  myself ;  I  am 
a  wretch  beneath  even  pity.  My  thousand  errors,  my  ten 
thousand  follies,  my  infinite  corruption,  have  well  deserved 
a  bitterer  fate  than  this.  But  thou !  —  I  feel  I  have  betrayed 
thee.  Hadst  thou  been  the  inmate  of  more  spiritual  clay, 
bound  with  a  brain  less  headstrong,  and  with  blood  less  hot, 
thou  mightest  have  been  glorious.1 

There  is  more  sincerity,  we  may  believe,  in  the  follow- 
ing confession :  — 

I  am  one,  though  young,  yet  old  enough  to  know,  Ambition 
is  a  demon;  and  I  fly  from  what  I  fear.  .  .  .  Think  of 
unrecognised  Caesar,  with  his  wasting  youth,  weeping  over 

i  Bk.  III.  ch.  18.  2  Bk.  IV.  ch.  3. 


132  ILLNESS  AND  DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  via 

the  Macedonian's  young  career !  Could  Pharsalia  compensate 
for  those  withering  pangs  ?  View  the  obscure  Napoleon 
starving  in  the  streets  of  Paris !  What  was  St.  Helena  to 
the  bitterness  of  such  existence  ?  The  visions  of  past  glory 
might  illumine  even  that  dark  imprisonment;  but  to  be  con- 
scious that  his  supernatural  energies  might  die  away  without 
creating  their  miracles  —  can  the  wheel,  or  the  rack  rival  the 
torture  of  such  a  suspicion?  Lo!  Byron,  bending  o'er  his 
shattered  lyre,  with  inspiration  in  his  very  rage.  And  the 
pert  taunt  could  sting  even  this  child  of  light !  To  doubt  of 
the  truth  of  the  creed  in  which  you  have  been  nurtured,  is  not 
so  terrific  as  to  doubt  respecting  the  intellectual  vigour  on 
whose  strength  you  have  staked  your  happiness.1 

Or  in  this  apostrophe  to  his  father :  — 

Oh,  my  father !  .  .  .  our  friendship  is  a  hallowed  joy  :  — 
it  is  my  pride,  and  let  it  be  thy  solace.  O'er  the  waters  that 
cannot  part  our  souls,  I  breathe  good  wishes.  Peace  brood 
o'er  thy  lettered  bowers,  and  Love  smile  in  the  cheerful 
hall,  that  I  shall  not  forget  upon  the  swift  Symplegades, 
or  where  warm  Syria,  with  its  palmy  shore,  recalls  our  holy 
ancestry ! 2 

Or,  even  in  spite  of  the  dithyrambs,  in  the  following 
outburst  of  patriotism  :  — 

Oh,  England!  Oh,  my  country  —  although  full  many  an 
Eastern  clime  and  Southern  race  have  given  me  something 
of  their  burning  blood,  it  flows  for  thee !  I  rejoice  that  my 
flying  fathers  threw  their  ancient  seed  on  the  stern  shores 
which  they  have  not  dishonoured :  —  I  am  proud  to  be  thy 
child.  Thy  noble  laws  have  fed  with  freedom  a  soul  that  ill 
can  brook  constraint.  Among  thy  hallowed  hearths,  I  own 
most  beautiful  affections.  In  thy  abounding  tongue,  my 
thoughts  find  music;  and  with  the  haughty  fortunes  of  thy 
realm,  my  destiny  would  mingle !  .  .  .  Few  can  love  thee 
better  than  he  who  traces  here  these  idle  lines.  Worthier 
heads  are  working  for  thy  glory  and  thy  good ;  but  if  ever  the 
hour  shall  call,  my  brain  and  life  are  thine.3 

In  lighter  vein,  he  laughs,  as  he  was  always  ready  to 
do,  at  his  own  faults  and  foibles  :  — 

I  sometimes  think  I  write  a  pretty  style,  though  spoiled 
by  that  confounded  puppyism ;  but,  then,  mine  is  the  puppy 

i  Bk.  II.  ch.  7.  2  Bk.  III.  ch.  8.  3  Bk.  III.  ch.  18. 


1831]  PUBLICATION  133 

age,  and  that  will  wear  off.  Then,  too,  there  are  my  vanity, 
my  conceit,  my  affectation,  my  arrogance,  and  my  egotism ; 
all  very  heinous,  and  painfully  contrasting  with  the  imperturb- 
able propriety  of  my  fellow-scribblers,  —  '  All  gentlemen  in 
stays,  as  stiff  as  stones.'  But  I  may  mend,  or  they  fall  off, 
and  then  the  odds  will  be  more  equal.1 

But  by  far  the  most  remarkable  of  all  these  asides  is 
the  following  truly  astonishing  bit  of  prescient  imperti- 
nence :  — 

One  thing  is  quite  clear,  —  that  a  man  may  speak  very  well 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  fail  very  completely  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  There  are  two  distinct  styles  requisite: 
I  intend,  in  the  course  of  my  career,  if  I  have  time,  to  give 
a  specimen  of  both.  In  the  Lower  House,  Don  Juan  may 
perhaps  be  our  model ;  in  the  Upper  House,  Paradise  Lost.2 

By  reason  of  Colburn's  many  delays  the  book  did  not 
make  its  appearance  till  the  year  after  it  was  completed, 
when  Disraeli  was  in  the  East.  It  was  never  a  favourite 
of  its  author's.  Even  before  publication  he  had  lost 
interest  in  it,  so  far  that  he  was  able  to  write  to  his 
sister  :  '  I  don't  care  a  jot  about  The  Young  Duke.  I  never 
staked  any  fame  on  it ;  it  may  take  its  chance.'  In  the 
General  Preface  to  the  novels,  written  in  1870,  when 
passing  his  early  novels  in  review,  he  ignores  it  altogether, 
and  to  the  severely  expurgated  edition  issued  with  bis 
collected  works  in  1853  he  thought  it  necessary  to  prefix 
the  apology :  '  Young  authors  are  apt  to  fall  into  affectation 
and  conceit,  and  the  writer  of  this  work  sinned  very  much 
in  these  respects  ;  but  the  affectation  of  youth  should  be 
viewed  leniently,  and  every  man  has  a  right  to  be  con- 
ceited until  he  is  successful.'  In  one  quarter  it  was 
assured  of  an  admiring  welcome  from  the  first. 

From  Sarah  Disraeli. 

April  4,  '31. 

For  The  Young  Duke,  it  is  excellent,  —  most  excellent. 
There  is  not  a  dull  half  page,  —  not  a  dull  half  line.  Your 

1  Bk.  III.  ch.  18.  2  Bk.  V.  ch.  6. 


134  ILLNESS  AND  DESPONDENCY         [CHAP,  vnr 

story  is  unparalleled,  for  though  it  ends  in  a  marriage  which 
one  can  tell  without  peeping  it  grows  more  exciting  as  it 
winds  towards  its  close.  Your  heroine  is  fit  to  be  worshipped  — 
your  first  sight  of  her  is  inimitable.  The  Young  Duke  is  as  you 
say  '  the  noblest  animal  in  the  world.'  The  two  scenes  of 
rejection  and  the  Alhambra  Supper,  and  the  gambling  scene 
all  wonderful,  —  the  last  so  utterly  unlike  all  gambling  scenes 
in  novels,  no  thumping  of  the  table  or  the  forehead,  but  all 
so  desperate  and  so  cool  that  it  makes  your  hair  stand  on  end. 
The  last  stake  beats  Hogarth.  You  must  expect  to  be  rated 
for  bringing  your  fair  innocent  readers  into  such  company  as 
pseudo  Mrs.  Annesley  and  pseudo  Lady  Squib.  I  say  nothing 
of  your  moral  episodes,  for  they  touch  my  heart  too  keenly  to 
let  me  be  at  all  aware  of  what  effect  they  will  have  upon 
others.  One  reading  has  repaid  me  for  months  of  suspense, 
and  that  is  saying  everything  if  you  knew  how  much  my  heart 
is  wrapt  up  in  your  fame. 

The  reception  of  the  book  by  the  critics  was  at  least 
as  good  as  it  deserved,  and  it  at  once  became  popular. 

From  Sarah  Disraeli. 

May  1,  1831. 

Wherever  we  go,  The  Young  Duke  is  before  us,  and  its 
praises  for  ever  resounding.  But  I  know  you  care  nothing 
for  family  commendation.  .  .  .  Jerdan  has  at  last  dis- 
covered that  its  author  is  gifted  with  every  quality  that 
constitutes  a  man  of  splendid  genius.  The  highest  power  of 
imagination  that  creates  and  combines  the  most  brilliant  wit, 
the  keenest  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  a  fullness  of  knowledge 
that  conveys  a  characteristic  trait  in  a  slight  phrase,  and 
a  long  etcetera  of  truths  which  I  suppose  he  has  acquired  from 
his  -friend  Bulwer.  To  balance  such  an  extraordinary  venture 
of  commendation,  he  is  obliged  to  find  a  fault  or  two.  .  .  . 
The  book  is  reviewed  in  all  weekly  and  Sunday  papers  —  all 
with  excessive  praise. 

Subsequently  the  admiring  sister  reports,  on  the 
authority  of  '  some  Americans  who  have  just  come  to 
England,'  that  '  The  Young  Duke  is  the  text-book  of  the 
United  States,  from  which  they  preach  and  read,  and  learn 
that  important  requisite  manners.'  The  one  conspicu- 
ous exception  to  the  general  friendliness  of  the  critics 
was  supplied  by  the  Westminster  Review,  the  organ  of 


1831]  RECEPTION   OF   THE   NOVEL  135 

the  Benthamites.  '  To  parasites,  sycophants,  toadeaters, 
tuft-hunters,  and  humble  companions,'  this  paper  ur- 
banely remarked,  '  it  will  be  a  book  full  of  comfort  and 
instruction  in  their  callings.'  Disraeli,  it  must  be  said, 
had  given  much  provocation  ;  for  not  only  had  ridicule 
of  the  Benthamites  been  the  express  purpose  of  Popanilla, 
but  in  The  Young  Duke  itself  there  is  some  bitter  satire 
of  their  '  screw  and  lever '  philosophy.  Sarah  Disraeli 
wrote  before  publication  that  the  book  had  not  been 
puffed  '  in  anything  to  find  fault  with '  ;  but  this  was 
hardly  just  to  Colburn,  who  was  practising  his  customary 
arts  with  his  customary  activity  and  address  —  and  that 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  author  had  tried  in  the  preface 
to  deprive  him  of  one  of  the  most  potent  weapons  in  his 
armoury  by  expressly  disclaiming  portraiture. 

The  great  mass  of  my  readers  (if  I  have  a  mass,  as  I  hope,) 
will  attribute  the  shades  that  flit  about  these  volumes  to  any 
substances  they  please.  That  smaller  portion  of  society, 
who  are  most  competent  to  decide  upon  the  subject,  will 
instantly  observe,  that  however  I  may  have  availed  myself 
of  a  trait,  or  an  incident,  and  often  inadvertently,  the  whole 
is  ideal.  To  draw  caricatures  of  our  contemporaries  is  not  a 
very  difficult  task  :  it  requires  only  a  small  portion  of  talent, 
and  a  great  want  of  courtesy. 


CHAPTER  IX 

TOUR  IN  THE  EAST 
1830-1831 

The  journey  on  which  Disraeli  now  embarked  with 
his  friend  Meredith  proved  a  capital  event  in  his  life  and 
had  marked  effects  on  his  whole  subsequent  career, both 
literary  and  political.  It  not  only  enlarged  his  experi- 
ence beyond  that  of  most  young  Englishmen  of  his  day, 
but,  what  was  even  more  important  to  one  of  his  peculiar 
temperament,  it  helped  to  give  definite  purpose  and 
significance  to  that  Oriental  tendency  in  his  nature  which, 
vaguely  present  before,  was  henceforth  to  dominate  his 
imagination  and  show  itself  in  nearly  all  his  achieve- 
ments. We  can  see  the  influence  of  the  Eastern  journey 
in  Contarini  Fleming,  in  Alroy,  in  Tancred,  and  in 
Lothair;  but  we  can  see  it  not  less  clearly  in  the  bold 
stroke  of  policy  which  laid  the  foundations  of  English 
ascendency  in  Egypt,  in  the  Act  which  gave  explicit  form 
to  the  conception  of  an  Indian  Empire  with  the  Sovereign 
of  Great  Britain  at  its  head,  and  in  the  settlement  imposed 
on  Europe  at  the  Berlin  Congress.  The  letters 1  written 
to  his  family  during  the  journey  have  been  published 
since  his  death ;  and  after  the  lapse  of  eighty  years  they 
retain  their  freshness  and  interest  in  a  way  that  is  rare 
with  such  compositions.  Keen  observation,  a  graphic 

1  The  references  here  will  be  to  the  1887  edition  of  Lord  Beacons- 
fieWs  Letters,  in  which  the  Home  Letters  and  Lord  Beaconsfield"1 's 
Correspondence  with  his  Sister  are  combined  in  one  volume. 

136 


1830]  GIBRALTAR  137 

and  vivacious  style,  the  power  of  concentrating  a  picture 
into  a  phrase,  and  a  strain  of  joyous  raillery  running 
through  all  are  the  elements  of  their  charm.  'C'est 
une  si  jolie  chose  que  de  savoir  e*crire  ce  que  1'on  pense,' 
says  Madame  de  Sevigne,  a  favourite  of  Disraeli's,  who 
well  knew  herself  the  vivid  delight  of  easy  and  perfect 
expression.  Meredith,  Disraeli's  companion,  was  much 
better  educated,  much  more  methodical,  and  much  more 
conscientiously  laborious  in  profiting  by  the  opportuni- 
ties of  the  journey ;  but  his  diary  and  letters  which,  with 
other  material  beyond  what  has  been  already  published, 
are  available  for  this  chapter,  help  one  to  realise  how 
easily  the  scenes  and  incidents  to  which  the  man  of 
imagination  can  lend  an  abiding  interest  may  become  in 
the  hands  of  another  the  subject  of  a  prosy  and  lifeless 
chronicle. 

The  travellers  left  London  by  steamer  on  the  28th  of 
May,  and  after  a  week's  detention  at  Falmouth  proceeded 
by  the  mail  packet  to  Gibraltar. 


To  Isaac  Disradi. 


GIBRALTAR, 
July  1, 1830. 


MY  DEAR  FATHER, 

I  write  to  you  from  a  country  where  the  hedges  consist  of 
aloes  all  in  blossom:  fourteen,  sixteen  feet  high.  Conceive 
the  contrast  to  our  beloved  and  beechy  Bucks.  I  say  nothing 
of  geraniums  and  myrtles,  bowers  of  oranges  and  woods  of 
olives,  though  the  occasional  palm  should  not  be  forgotten  for 
its  great  novelty  and  uncommon  grace.  We  arrived  here 
after  a  very  brief  and  very  agreeable  passage,  passed  in  very 
agreeable  society.  .  .  .  This  Rock  is  a  wonderful  place,  with 
a  population  infinitely  diversified.  Moors  with  costumes 
radiant  as  a  rainbow  or  an  Eastern  melodrama ;  Jews  with 
gaberdines  and  skull-caps;  Genoese,  Highlanders,  and 
Spaniards,  whose  dress  is  as  picturesque  as  that  of  the  sons  of 
Ivor.  There  are  two  public  libraries  —  the  Garrison  Library, 
with  more  than  12,000  volumes ;  and  the  Merchants',  with 
upwards  of  half  that  number.  In  the  Garrison  are  all  your 
works,  even  the  last  edition  of  the  Literary  Character ;  in  the 
Merchants'  the  greater  part.  Each  possesses  a  copy  of  another 
book,  supposed  to  be  written  by  a  member  of  our  family,  and 


138  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

which  is  looked  upon  at  Gibraltar  as  one  of  the  masterpieces 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  You  may  feel  their  intellectual 
pulse  from  this.  At  first  I  apologised  and  talked  of  youthful 
blunders  and  all  that,  really  being  ashamed;  but  finding 
them,  to  my  astonishment,  sincere,  and  fearing  they  were 
stupid  enough  to  adopt  my  last  opinion,  I  shifted  my  position 
just  in  time,  looked  very  grand,  and  passed  myself  off  for  a 
child  of  the  Sun,  like  the  Spaniard  in  Peru. 

We  were  presented  to  the  Governor,  Sir  George  Don,  a 
general  and  G.C.B.,  a  very  fine  old  gentleman,  of  the  Windsor 
Terrace  school,  courtly,  almost  regal  in  his  manner,  paternal, 
almost  officious  in  his  temper,  a  sort  of  mixture  of  Lord  St. 
Vincent  and  the  Prince  de  Ligne,  English  in  his  general  style, 
but  highly  polished  and  experienced  in  European  society. 
His  palace,  the  Government  House,  is  an  old  convent,  and  one 
of  the  most  delightful  residences  I  know,  with  a  garden  under 
the  superintendence  of  Lady  Don,  full  of  rare  exotics,  with  a 
beautiful  terrace  over  the  sea,  a  berceau  of  vines,  and  other 
delicacies  which  would  quite  delight  you.  .  .  .  He l  behaved  to 
us  with  great  kindness,  asked  us  to  dine,  and  gave  us  a  route 
himself  for  an  excursion  to  the  Sierra  da  Ronda,  a  savage 
mountain  district,  abounding  in  the  most  beautiful  scenery 
and  bugs ! 

We  returned  from  this  excursion,  which  took  us  a 
week,  yesterday,  greatly  gratified.  The  country  in  which 
we  travelled  is  a  land  entirely  of  robbers  and  smugglers. 
They  commit  no  personal  violence,  but  lay  you  on  the  ground 
and  clean  out  your  pockets.  If  you  have  less  than  sixteen 
dollars  they  shoot  you ;  that  is  the  tariff,  and  is  a  loss  worth 
risking.  I  took  care  to  have  very  little  more,  and  no  baggage 
which  I  could  not  stow  in  the  red  bag  which  my  mother 
remembers  making  for  my  pistols.  .  .  .  You  will  wonder  how 
we  managed  to  extract  pleasure  from  a  life  which  afforded 
us  hourly  peril  for  our  purses  and  perhaps  for  our  lives, 
which  induced  fatigue  greater  than  I  ever  experienced,  for 
here  are  no  roads,  and  we  were  never  less  than  eight  hours 
a  day  on  horseback,  picking  our  way  through  a  course  which 
can  only  be  compared  to  the  steep  bed  of  an  exhausted 
cataract,  and  with  so  slight  a  prospect  of  attaining  for  a 
reward  either  food  or  rest.  —  I  will  tell  you.  The  country 
was  beautiful,  the  novelty  of  the  life  was  great,  and  above 
all  we  had  Brunet.  What  a  man!  Born  in  Italy  of  French 
parents,  he  has  visited,  as  the  captain  of  a  privateer,  all 
countries  of  the  Mediterranean :  Egypt,  Turkey,  Syria. 

1  Meredith  testifies  that  Disraeli's  lectures  on  morals  and  politics  had 
made  a  great  impression  on  Sir  George. 


1830]  TRAVELLING  IN  SPAIN  139 

Early  in  life,  as  valet  to  Lord  Hood,  he  was  in  England,  and 
has  even  been  at  Guinea.  After  fourteen  years'  cruising  he 
was  taken  by  the  Algerines,  and  was  in  various  parts  of  Barbary 
for  five  or  six  years,  and  at  last  he  obtains  his  liberty  and 
settles  at  Gibraltar,  where  he  becomes  cazador  to  the  Governor, 
for  he  is,  among  his  universal  accomplishments,  a  celebrated 
shot.  He  can  speak  all  languages  but  English,  of  which  he 
makes  a  sad  affair  —  even  Latin,  and  he  hints  at  a  little  Greek. 
He  is  fifty,  but  light  as  a  butterfly  and  gay  as  a  bird ;  in 
person  not  unlike  English  at  Lyme,  if  you  can  imagine 
so  insipid  a  character  with  a  vivacity  that  never  flags,  and 
a  tongue  that  never  rests.  Brunet  did  everything,  remedied 
every  inconvenience,  and  found  an  expedient  for  every  diffi- 
culty. Never  did  I  live  so  well  as  among  these  wild  moun- 
tains of  Andalusia,  so  exquisite  is  his  cookery.  Seriously, 
he  is  an  artist  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  used  to  amuse 
himself  by  giving  us  some  very  exquisite  dish  among  these 
barbarians  ;  for  he  affects  a  great  contempt  of  the  Spaniards, 
and  an  equal  admiration  for  the  Moors.  Whenever  we 
complained  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  with  a  look  of  ineffable 
contempt,  exclaiming,  'Nous  ne  sommes  pas  en  Barbaric!' 
Eecalling  our  associations  with  that  word  and  country,  it 
was  superbly  ludicrous.  .  .  . 

At  Castellar  we  slept  in  the  very  haunt  of  the  banditti, 
among  the  good  fellows  of  Jose  Maria,  the  Captain  Rolando 
of  this  part,  and  were  not  touched.  In  fact,  we  were  not 
promising  prey,  though  picturesque  enough  in  our  appearance. 
Imagine  M.  and  myself  on  two  little  Andalusian  mountain 
horses  with  long  tails  and  jennet  necks,  followed  by  a 
larger  beast  of  burthen  with  our  baggage,  and  the  inevitable 
Brunet  cocked  upon  its  neck  with  a  white  hat  and  slippers, 
lively,  shrivelled  and  noisy  as  a  pea  dancing  upon  tin.  Our 
Spanish  guide,  tall,  and  with  a  dress  excessively  brode  and 
covered  with  brilliant  buttons,  walking  by  the  side  and 
occasionally  adding  to  the  burthen  of  our  sumpter  steed. 
The  air  of  the  mountains,  the  rising  sun,  the  rising  appetite, 
the  variety  of  picturesque  persons  and  things  we  met,  and  the 
impending  danger,  made  a  delightful  life,  and  had  it  not  been 
for  the  great  enemy  I  should  have  given  myself  up  entirely 
to  the  magic  of  the  life ;  but  that  spoiled  all.  It  is  not  worse, 
sometimes  I  think  it  lighter  about  the  head,  but  the  palpita- 
tion about  the  heart  greatly  increases,  otherwise  my  health  is 
wonderful.  Never  have  I  been  better ;  but  what  use  is  this 
when  the  end  of  all  existence  is  debarred  me  ?  I  say  no  more 
upon  this  melancholy  subject,  by  which  I  am  ever  and  infinitely 
depressed,  and  often  most  so  when  the  world  least  imagines  it ; 


140  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

but  to  complain  is  useless,  and  to  endure  almost  impossible ; 
but  existence  is  certainly  less  irksome  in  the  mild  distraction 
of  this  various  life.  .  .  . 

Tell  my  mother  that  as  it  is  the  fashion  among  the  dandies 
of  this  place  —  that  is,  the  officers,  for  there  are  no  others  — 
not  to  wear  waistcoats  in  the  morning,  her  new  studs  come  into 
fine  play,  and  maintain  my  reputation  of  being  a  great  judge 
of  costume,  to  the  admiration  and  envy  of  many  subalterns.  I 
have  also  the  fame  of  being  the  first  who  ever  passed  the 
Straits  with  two  canes,  a  morning  and  an  evening  cane.  I 
change  my  cane  as  the  gun  fires,  and  hope  to  carry  them  both 
on  to  Cairo.  It  is  wonderful  the  effect  these  magical  wands 
produce.  I  owe  to  them  even  more  attention  than  to  being  the 
supposed  author  of  —  what  is  it  ?  —  I  forget ! 

These  Straits,  by-the-bye  —  that  is,  the  passage  for  the 
last  ten  miles  or  so  to  Gib,  between  the  two  opposite  coasts 
of  Africa  and  Europe,  with  the  ocean  for  a  river,  and  the 
shores  all  mountains  —  is  by  far  the  sublimest  thing  I  have 
yet  seen.  .  .  .  When  I  beg  you  to  write,  I  mean  my 
beloved  Sa,  because  I  know  you  think  it  a  bore;  but  do 
all  as  you  like.  To  her  and  to  my  dearest  mother  a  thousand 
kisses.  Tell  Ralph  I  have  not  forgotten  my  promise  of  an 
occasional  letter;  and  my  dear  pistol-cleaner,  that  he  forgot 
to  oil  the  locks,  which  rusted  in  conveyance.  I  thank  the  gods 
daily  I  am  freed  of  Louis  Clement,  who  would  have  been  an 
expense  and  a  bore.  Tell  [Washington]  Irving  he  has  left  a 
golden  name  in  Spain.  Few  English  visit  Gibraltar.  Tell 
Lord  Mahon,  inquiries  made  after  his  health.  Adieu,  my 
beloved  padre. 

Your  most  affectionate  son, 

B.  r>. l 

CADIZ, 

July  14. 

We  passed  a  very  pleasant  week  at  Gibraltar,  after  our 
return  from  Ronda.  We  dined  with  the  Governor  at  his 
cottage  at  Europa,  a  most  charming  pavilion,  and  met  a  most 
agreeable  party.  Lady  Don  was  well  enough  to  dine  with  us, 
and  did  me  the  honour  of  informing  me  that  I  was  the  cause  of 
the  exertion,  which,  though  of  course  a  fib,  was  nevertheless 
flattering.  She  is,  though  very  old,  without  exception  one  of 
the  most  agreeable  personages  that  I  ever  met,  excessively 
acute  and  piquante,  with  an  aptitude  of  detecting  character, 
and  a  tact  in  assuming  it,  very  remarkable.  To  listen  to  her 
you  would  think  you  were  charming  away  the  hour  with  a 
blooming  beauty  in  Mayfair ;  and,  though  excessively  infirm, 

1  Letters,  pp.  3-10. 


1830]  LADY  DON  141 

her  eye  is  so  brilliant  and  so  full  of  moquerie  that  you  quite 
forgot  her  wrinkles.  Altogether  the  scene  very  much  re- 
sembled a  small  German  Court.  There  was  his  Excellency 
in  uniform  covered  with  orders,  exactly  like  the  old  Grand 
Duke  of  Darmstadt,  directing  everything;  his  wife  the  clever 
Prussian  Princess  that  shared  his  crown ;  the  aides-de-camp 
made  excellent  chamberlains,  and  the  servants  in  number 
and  formality  quite  equalled  those  of  a  Residenz.  The 
repast  was  really  elegant  and  recherchd  even  for  this  curious 
age.  Sir  George  will  yet  head  his  table  and  yet  carve, 
recommend  a  favourite  dish,  and  deluge  you  with  his  summer 
drink,  half  champagne  and  half  lemonade. 

After  dinner  Lady  Don  rode  out  with  the  very  pretty  wife  of 
Colonel  Considine,  and  the  men  dispersed  in  various  directions. 
It  was  the  fate  of  Meredith  and  myself  to  be  lionised  to  some 
cave  or  other  with  Sir  George.  What  a  scene,  and  what  a  pro- 
cession !  First  came  two  grooms  on  two  Barbs ;  then  a 
carriage  with  four  horses ;  at  the  window  at  which  H.  E. 
sits,  a  walking  footman,  and  then  an  outrider,  all  at  a  funeral 
pace.  We  were  directed  to  meet  our  host  at  the  cave,  ten 
minutes'  walk.  During  this  time  Sir  G.  tries  one  of  the 
Arabians,  but  at  the  gentlest  walk,  and  the  footman  changes 
his  position  in  consequence  to  his  side ;  but  it  is  windy, 
our  valiant  but  infirm  friend  is  afraid  of  being  blown  off, 
and  when  he  reaches  the  point  of  destination,  we  find  him 
again  in  the  carriage.  In  spite  of  of  his  infirmities  he  will  get 
out  to  lionise ;  but  before  he  disembarks,  he  changes  his 
foraging  cap  for  a  full  general's  cock  with  a  plume  as  big  as 
the  Otranto  one;  and  this  because  the  hero  will  never  be 
seen  in  public  in  undress,  although  we  were  in  a  solitary 
cave  looking  over  the  ocean,  and  inhabited  only  by  monkeys. 
The  cave  is  shown,  and  we  all  get  in  the  carriage,  because 
he  is  sure  we  are  tired;  the  foraging  cap  is  again  assumed, 
and  we  travel  back  to  the  Cottage,  Meredith,  myself,  the 
Governor,  and  the  cocked  hat,  each  in  a  seat.  In  the 
evening  he  has  his  rubber,  which  he  never  misses,  and  is 
surprised  I  do  not  play  '  the  only  game  for  gentlemen !  You 
should  play;  learn.'  However,  I  preferred  the  conversation 
of  his  agreeable  lady,  although  the  charms  of  Mrs.  Considine 
were  puzzling,  and  I  was  very  much  like  Hercules  between 
—  you  know  the  rest. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  my  hair  is  coming  off,  just  at  the  moment 
it  had  attained  the  highest  perfection,  and  was  universally 
mistaken  for  a  wig,  so  that  I  am  obliged  to  let  the 
women  pull  it  to  satisfy  their  curiosity.  Let  me  know 
what  my  mother  thinks.  There  are  no  wigs  here  that  I 


142  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

could  wear.  Pomade  and  all  that  is  quite  a  delusion. 
Somebody  recommends  me  cocoa-nut  oil,  which  I  could 
get  here ;  but  suppose  it  turns  it  grey  or  blue  or  green  !  I 
made  a  very  pleasant  acquaintance  at  Gibraltar,  Sir  Charles 
Gordon,  a  brother  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  and  Colonel  of  the 
Royal  Highlanders.  He  was  absent  during  my  first  visit. 
He  is  not  unlike  his  brother  in  appearance,  but  the  frigidity 
of  the  Gordons  has  expanded  into  urbanity,  instead  of  sub- 
siding into  sullenness — in  short,  a  man  with  a  warm  heart 
though  a  cold  manner,  and  exceedingly  amusing,  with  the 
reputation  of  being  always  silent.  As  contraries  sometimes 
agree,  we  became  exceedingly  friendly. 

The  Judge  Advocate  at  Gibraltar  is  that  Mr.  Baron 
Field  who  once  wrote  a  book,  and  whom  all  the  world 
took  for  a  noble,  but  it  turned  out  that  Baron  was 
to  him  what  Thomas  is  to  other  men.  He  pounced  upon 
me,  said  he  had  seen  you  at  Murray's,  first  man  of  the 
day,  and  all  that,  and  evidently  expected  to  do  an  amaz- 
ing bit  of  literature;  but  I  found  him  a  bore,  and  vulgar, 
a  Storks  without  breeding,  consequently  I  gave  him  a 
lecture  on  canes,  which  made  him  stare,  and  he  has  avoided 
me  ever  since.  The  truth  is,  he  wished  to  saddle  his  mother 
upon  me  for  a  compagnon  de  voyage,  whom  I  discovered  in 
the  course  of  half  an  hour  to  be  both  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind, 
but  yet  more  endurable  than  the  noisy,  obtrusive,  jargonic 
judge,  who  is  a  true  lawyer,  ever  illustrating  the  obvious, 
explaining  the  evident,  and  expatiating  on  the  common- 
place. .  .  . 

I  have  met  here  Mr.  Frank  Hall  Standish,  once  a  cele- 
brated dandy,  and  who  wrote  a  life  of  Voltaire,  you  re- 
member. We  have  heard  of  the  King's  death,  which  is  the 
destruction  of  my  dress  waistcoats.  I  truly  grieve.  News 
arrived  last  night  of  the  capture  of  Algiers,  but  all  this  will 
reach  you  before  my  letter.  My  general  health  is  excellent. 
I  have  never  had  a  moment's  illness  since  I  left  home,  not 
counting  an  occasional  indigestion,  but  I  mean  no  fever  and 
so  on.  The  great  enemy,  I  think,  is  weaker,  but  the  palpitation 
at  the  heart  the  reverse.  I  find  wherever  I  go  plenty  of  friends 
and  nothing  but  attention.1 

The  Governor's  'agreeable  lady,'  made  a  great  im- 
pression on  Disraeli.  *  While  I  remember  it,'  he  wrote 
later,  '  a  copy  of  The  Young  Duke  must  be  sent  to  Lady 
Don.  Tell  Ralph  to  attend  to  it.  Write  in  the  title 

1  Letters,  p.  10. 


1830]  ANDALUSIA  143 

"Lady  Don,  by  desire  of  the  author."  .  .  .  You  will 
be  surprised  at  my  sending  a  light  novel,  and  finding  a 
muse  in  an  old  lady  of  seventy  ;  but  in  truth  she  is  the 
cleverest  and  most  charming  woman  I  ever  met 
and  the  only  person  I  know  who  gives  one  the  least  idea  of 
the  Madame  du  Tencins  and  the  other  brillantes,  who  flirted 
with  Renault,  chatted  with  Montesquieu,  and  corresponded 
with  Horace  Walpole.' 

The  original  intention  of  the  two  friends  had  been  to 
hasten  on  to  Malta,  but  they  were  so  delighted  with 
their  first  glimpse  of  Spain  that  they  lingered  for  a  couple 
of  months.  '  I  travelled  through  the  whole  of  Andalusia 
on  horseback,'  Disraeli  wrote  to  Austen,  '  I  was  never 
less  than  ten  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  on  my  steed, 
and  more  than  once  saw  the  sun  set  and  rise  without 
quitting  my  saddle,  which  few  men  can  say,  and  which  I 
never  wish  to  say  again.  I  visited  Cadiz,  Seville,  Cordova, 
and  Granada,  among  many  other  cities  which  must  not  be 
named  with  these  romantic  towns.  I  sailed  upon  the 
Guadalquivir,  I  cheered  at  the  bull  fights  ;  I  lived  for  a 
week  among  brigands  and  wandered  in  the  fantastic  halls 
of  the  delicate  Alhambra.  Why  should  I  forget  to  say 
that  I  ate  an  olla  podrida?  I  will  not  weary  you  with 
tales  of  men  of  buckram  ;  the^  must  be  reserved  for  our 
fireside.  I  entered  Spain  a  sceptic  with  regard  to  their 
robbers,  and  listened  to  all  their  romances  with  a  smile. 
I  lived  to  change  my  opinion.  I  at  length  found  a  country 
where  adventure  is  the  common  course  of  existence.' 
Leaving  Gibraltar  he  rode  in  a  couple  of  days  to  Cadiz, 
gazing  by  the  way  across  those  '  sublime '  Straits,  where 
'  Europe  and  Africa  frown  on  each  other,'  at  the  picturesque 
beauty  of  the  'sultry  sister.'  Cadiz  he  found  brilliant 
beyond  description.  ' "  Fair  Florence  "  is  a  very  dingy 
affair  compared  with  it.  The  white  houses  and  the 
green  jalousies  sparkle  in  the  sun.  Figaro  is  in  every 
street;  Rosina  in  every  balcony.' 


144  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

To  Isaac  D' 'Israeli. 

SEVILLE, 

July  26. 

Cadiz  I  left  with  regret,  though  there  is  little  to  interest 
except  its  artificial  beauty.  It  is  not  unlike  Venice  in  its 
situation,  but  there  the  resemblance  ceases.  Cadiz  is  without 
an  association  —  not  a  church,  a  picture,  or  a  palace.  The 
family  of  the  Consul  is  a  most  agreeable  one:  you  must 
not  associate  with  this  somewhat  humble  title  a  character 
at  all  in  unison.  Mr.  Brackenbury  is  great  enough  for  an 
ambassador,  and  lives  well  enough  for  one;  but  with  some 
foibles,  he  is  a  very  hospitable  personage,  and  I  owe  many 
agreeable  hours  to  its  exercise.  You  see  what  a  Sevillian 
ecritoire  is  by  this  despatch.  I  have  already  expended  on  it 
more  time  than  would  have  served  for  writing  many  letters. 
I  am  almost  in  a  state  of  frenzy  from  the  process  of  painting 
my  ideas  in  this  horrible  scrawl.  It  is  like  writing  with 
blacking  and  with  a  skewer.  Mr.  Standish  returned  to  Seville, 
where  he  resides  at  present,  and  called  on  me  the  next  day. 
We  dined  with  him  yesterday.  He  is  a  most  singular  character 
—  a  spoiled  child  of  fortune,  who  thinks  himself,  and  who  is 
perhaps  now,  a  sort  of  philosopher.  But  all  these  characters 
must  be  discussed  over  our  fireside  or  on  the  Terrace.1 

Fleuriz,  the  Governor  of  Cadiz,  is  a  singular  brute.  When 
we  meet  I  will  tell  you  how  I  Pelhamised  him.  All  the 
English  complain  that  when  they  are  presented  to  him  he 
bows  and  says  nothing,  uttering  none  of  those  courtly  inanities 
which  are  expected  on  such  occasions,  and  for  which  crowned 
heads  and  all  sorts  of  viceroys  are  celebrated.  Brackenbury 
had  been  reading  a  review  of  the  Commentaries2  in  the 
Courier  in  the  morning,  and  full  thereof,  announced  me  to 
Fleuriz  as  the  son  of  the  greatest  author  in  England.  The 
usual  reception,  however,  only  greeted  me ;  but  I,  being  pre- 
pared for  the  savage,  was  by  no  means  silent,  and  made 
him  stare  for  half  an  hour  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner. 
He  was  sitting  over  some  prints  just  arrived  from  England  — 
a  view  of  Algiers,  and  the  fashions  for  June.  The  question 
was  whether  the  place  was  Algiers,  for  it  had  no  title.  Just 

1  The  Yew  Terrace  at  Bradenham,  where  Disraeli  in  these  early  years 
was  wont  to  compose  his  novels  or  con  his  speeches  as  he  walked  up 
and  down. 

2  His  father's  Commentaries  on  the  Life  and  Reign  of  Charles  I. 


1830]  MURILLO  145 

fresh  from  Gibraltar,  I  ventured  to  inform  his  Excellency 
that  it  was,  and  that  a  group  of  gentlemen  intended  to 

represent  A and  a  couple  of  his  friends,  but  displaying 

those  extraordinary  coats  and  countenances  that  Mr.  Acker- 
mann  offers  monthly  as  an  improvement  upon  Nature  and 
Nugee,  were  personages  no  less  eminent  than  the  Dey  and 
his  two  principal  conseillers  d'etat.  The  dull  Fleuriz  took 
everything  au  pied  de  lettre,  and  after  due  examination  insin- 
uated scepticism.  Whereupon  I  offer  renewed  arguments  to 
prove  the  dress  to  be  Moorish.  Fleuriz  calls  a  mademoiselle 
to  translate  the  inscription,  but  the  inscription  only  proves 
that  they  are  '  fashions  for  June ' ;  — at  Algiers,  I  add,  appealing 
to  every  one  whether  they  had  ever  seen  such  beings  in  London. 
Six  Miss  Brackenburys,  equally  pretty,  protest  they  have  not. 
Fleuriz,  unable  to  comprehend  badinage,  gives  a  Mashallah 
look  of  pious  resignation,  and  has  bowed  to  the  ground  every 
night  since  that  he  has  met  me.  .  .  . 

We  came  here  up  the  Guadalquivir,  and  to-morrow  proceed 
by  a  diligence  to  Cordova.  .  .  .  We  have  found  here  a  most 
agreeable  friend  in  Mr.  Williams,  an  English  merchant  mar- 
ried to  a  Spanish  lady,  and  considered  the  greatest  connois- 
seur in  paintings  in  Spain.  He  has  nearly  thirty  of  the  finest 
Murillos.  I  had  a  letter  to  him  from  Brackenbury.  It  is 
astonishing  with  what  kindness  he  behaves  to  us.  His  house 
is  open  to  us  at  all  times,  and  we  pass  our  evenings  most 
agreeably  sitting  in  his  patio,  turning  over  the  original  draw- 
ings of  Murillo,  while  his  Spanish  sister-in-law,  Dolores,  sings 
a  bolero.  It  is  the  mode  to  call  all  the  ladies  here  by  their 
Christian  name  directly  you  are  introduced.  So  much  for 
Spanish  etiquette.  On  the  other  hand,  my  tailor  is  offended 
if  I  do  not  ask  him  to  take  a  chair,  and  always  address  him 
Signor.  It  is  all  banished  to  the  lower  classes.  When  he 
brought  home  my  jacket,  he  told  me  his  whole  fortune  was  at 
my  command.1 

Disraeli  was  enchanted  with  Murillo.  '  Run,  my  dear 
fellow,  to  Seville,'  he  wrote  to  Austen,  '  and  for  the  first 
time  in  your  life  know  what  a  great  artist  is  —  Murillo, 
Murillo,  Murillo  !  '  '  The  most  original  of  artists,'  he 
says  in  a  letter  to  Bradenham.  'No  man  has  painted 
more,  or  oftener  reached  the  ideal.  He  never  fails. 
Where  can  his  bad  pictures  be?' 

I  parted  with  my  friend  Standish  at  Seville  with  regret. 
He  is  excessively  fantastic  and  odd,  but  a  good  fellow.  The 

1  Letters,  p.  14. 


146  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

Spaniards  cannot  make  him  out,  and  the  few  English  that 
meet  him  set  him  down  only  as  exceedingly  affected.  He  is 
something  more.  The  man  of  pleasure,  who,  instead  of 
degenerating  into  a  roue,  aspires  to  be  a  philosopher,  is  to 
my  mind  certainly  a  respectable,  and  I  think,  an  interesting 
character.1 

At  Cordova  Disraeli  saw  and  was  impressed  by  the 
great  Cathedral  Mosque,  and  noted  therein  the  beautiful 
'shrine  and  chapel  of  a  Moorish  saint,  with  the  blue 
mosaic  and  the  golden  honeycombed  roof  as  vivid  and  as 
brilliant  as  when  the  saint  was  worshipped ' ;  and  then 
he  set  forth  on  the  long  ride  to  Granada. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

What  a  country  have  I  lived  in !  I  am  invited  by  '  a  grand 
lady  of  Madrid'  — I  quote  our  host  at  Cordova  —  to  join  her 
escort  to  Granada :  twenty  foot  soldiers,  four  servants  armed, 
and  tirailleurs  in  the  shape  of  a  dozen  muleteers.  We  refused, 
for  reasons  too  long  here  to  detail,  and  set  off  alone  two 
hours  before,  expecting  an  assault.  I  should  tell  you  we 
dined  previously  with  her  and  her  husband,  having  agreed 
to  meet  to  discuss  matters.  It  was  a  truly  Gil  Bias  scene. 
My  lord  in  an  undress  uniform,  slightly  imposing  in  appear- 
ance, greeted  us  with  dignity ;  the  signora,  exceedingly 
young  and  really  very  pretty,  with  infinite  vivacity  and 
grace.  A  French  valet  leant  on  his  chair,  and  a  duenna, 
such  as  Stephanoff  would  draw,  broad  and  supercilious,  with 
jet  eyes,  mahogany  complexion,  and  cocked-up  nose,  stood 
by  my  lady  bearing  a  large  fan.  She  was  most  complaisant, 
as  she  evidently  had  more  confidence  in  two  thick-headed 
Englishmen  with  their  Purdeys  and  Mantons  than  in  her 
specimen  of  the  once  famous  Spanish  infantry.  She  did 
not  know  that  we  are  cowards  on  principle.  I  could  screw 
up  my  courage  to  a  duel  or  a  battle,  but  I  think  my  life 
worth  five  pounds  in  the  shape  of  ransom  to  Jose*  Maria. 
In  spite  of  her  charms  and  their  united  eloquence,  which, 
as  they  only  spoke  Spanish,  was  of  course  most  persuasive, 
we  successfully  resisted.  The  moon  rises  on  our  course : 
for  the  first  two  leagues  all  is  anxiety,  as  it  was  well  known 
that  a  strong  band  was  lying  in  wait  for  the  'great  lady.' 
After  two  leagues  we  began  to  hope,  when  suddenly  our 

1  Letters,  p.  27. 


1830]  RIDE   TO   GRANADA  147 

guide  informs  us  that  he  hears  a  trampling  of  horses  in  the 
distance.  Ave  Maria!  A  cold  perspiration  came  over  me. 
Decidedly  they  approached,  but  rather  an  uproarious  crew. 
We  drew  up  out  of  pure  fear,  and  I  had  my  purse  ready. 
The  band  turned  out  to  be  a  company  of  actors  travelling 
to  Cordova.  There  they  were,  dresses  and  decorations,  sce- 
nery and  machinery,  all  on  mules  and  donkeys,  for  there 
are  no  roads  in  this  country.  The  singers  rehearsing  an 
opera;  the  principal  tragedian  riding  on  an  ass;  and  the 
buffo,  most  serious,  looking  as  grave  as  night,  with  a  cigar, 
and  in  greater  agitation  than  them  all.  Then  there  were 
women  in  side-saddles,  like  sedans,  and  whole  panniers  of 
children,  some  of  the  former  chanting  an  ave,  while  their 
waists  (saving  your  presence,  but  it  is  a  rich  trait)  were  in 
more  than  one  instance  encircled  by  the  brawny  arm  of  a 
more  robust  devotee.  All  this  irresistibly  reminded  me  of 
Cervantes.  We  proceed  and  meet  a  caravan  (corsario  they 
call  it,  but  I  spell  from  sound)  of  armed  merchants,  who 
challenged  us,  with  a  regular  piquet,  and  I  nearly  got  shot 
for  not  answering  in  time,  being  somewhat  before  my  guide. 
Then  come  two  travelling  friars  who  give  us  their  blessing, 
and  then  we  lose  our  way.  We  wander  about  all  night, 
dawn  breaks,  and  we  stumble  on  some  peasants  sleeping  in 
the  field  amid  their  harvest.  We  learn  that  we  cannot  regain 
our  road,  and,  utterly  wearied,  we  finally  sink  to  sound  sleep 
with  our  pack-saddles  for  our  pillows.1 

At  Granada  Disraeli  was  of  course  delighted  with  the 
Alhambra,  which  he  placed  'with  the  Parthenon,  the 
Pantheon,  and  York  Minster.' 


To  Isaac  D' 'Israeli. 

The  Saracenic  architecture  is  the  most  inventive  and  fan- 
ciful, but  at  the  same  time  the  most  fitting  and  the  most 
delicate  that  can  be  conceived.  There  would  be  no  doubt 
about  its  title  to  be  considered  among  the  first  inventions  of 
men  if  it  were  better  known.  It  is  only  to  be  found  in  any 
degree  of  perfection  in  Spain.  When  a  man  sneers  at  the 
Saracenic,  ask  him  what  he  has  seen.  Perhaps  a  barbarous 
though  picturesque  building,  called  the  Ducal  Palace,  at  Ven- 
ice !  What  should  we  think  of  a  man  who  decided  on  the 
buildings  of  Agrippa  by  the  architecture  of  Justinian,  or  judged 

i  Ibid.,  pp.  23-5. 


148  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

the  age  of  Pericles  by  the  restorations  of  Hadrian  ?     Yet  he 
would  not  commit  so  great  a  blunder.     .     .     . 

The  great  efforts  of  antique  architecture  are  confined  to 
temples  or  theatres,  which  at  the  best  can  be  only  a  room. 
The  Alhambra  is  a  palace,  and  the  opportunity  for  invention 
is,  of  course,  infinitely  increased.  It  is  not  a  ruin,  as  I  ex- 
pected, scarcely  in  a  state  of  dilapidation.  Certainly,  under 
the  patronage  of  our  late  monarch,  it  might  have  been 
restored  to  all  its  pristine  splendour,  though  I  think  a  compliant 
Parliament  would  have  been  almost  as  necessary  as  Sir 
Jeffrey  Wyatville.  Everything  about  it,  though  exquisitely 
proportioned,  is  slight  and  small  and  delicate.  Murphy 
makes  the  Court  of  Pillars  too  large  and  coarse.  Around 
this  court  are  chambers  with  carved  and  purple  roofs  studded 
with  gold,  and  walls  entirely  covered  with  the  most  fanciful 
relief,  picked  out  with  that  violet  tint  which  must  have  been 
copied  from  their  Andalusian  skies.  In  these  you  may 
sit  in  the  coolest  shade,  reclining  upon  cushions,  with  your 
beads  or  pipe,  and  view  the  most  dazzling  sunlight  in  the 
court,  which  assuredly  must  scorch  the  flowers  if  the  faithful 
lions  ever  ceased  from  pouring  forth  that  element  which  you 
must  travel  in  Spain  or  Africa  to  honour.  Pindar  was 
quite  right.1  These  chambers  are  innumerable.  There  is 
the  Hall  of  the  Ambassadors,  always  the  most  sumptuous ; 
the  Hall  of  Justice;  the  rooms  of  the  sultanas  and  of  the 
various  members  of  the  family,  quite  perfect,  not  a  single  roof 
has  given.  What  a  scene !  Ah,  that  you  were  here !  But 
conceive  it  in  the  times  of  the  Boabdils;  conceive  it  with 
all  its  courtly  decoration,  all  the  gilding,  all  the  imperial 
purple,  all  the  violet  relief,  all  the  scarlet  borders,  all  the 
glittering  inscriptions  and  costly  mosaics,  burnished,  bright 
and  fresh  ;  conceive  it  full  of  still  greater  ornaments,  the  liv- 
ing groups  with  their  rich  and  vivid  and  picturesque  cos- 
tume, and,  above  all,  their  shining  arms ;  some  standing  in 
groups  conversing,  some  smoking  in  sedate  silence,  some 
telling  their  beads,  some  squatting  round  a  storier.  Then  the 
bustle  and  the  rush,  and  the  arming  horsemen  all  in  motion, 
and  all  glancing  in  the  most  brilliant  sun.2 

Meredith  records  a  curious  incident  of  their  first  visit. 

The  old  lady  who  showed  us  over  the  Alhambra,  talkative 
and  intelligent,  would  have  it  that  Benjamin  D.  was  a  Moor, 
many  of  whom  come  to  visit  this  palace,  which  they  say  will 


1  'Apurrov  /*tv  vdtap  —  Water  is  best. 

2  Letters,  pp.  28,  29. 


1830]  THE   ALHAMBRA  149 

yet  be  theirs  again.  His  southern  aspect,  the  style  in  which 
he  paced  the  gorgeous  apartments,  and  sat  himself  in  the 
seat  of  the  Abencerrages,  quite  deceived  her;  she  repeated 
the  question  a  dozen  times,  and  would  not  be  convinced  of 
the  contrary.  His  parting  speech,  '  es  mi  casa,'  '  This  is  my 
palace,'  quite  confirmed  her  suspicions. 

From  Granada  Disraeli  wrote  a  letter  to  his  mother  '  on 
an  elephantine  sheet,  all  about  Spanish  ladies  and  tomato 
sauce.'  No  one  would  dream  that  it  was  from  the  pen 
of  an  invalid  to  whom  '  the  least  exertion  of  mind '  was 
instantly  painful. 

To  Maria  D*  Israeli. 

GRANADA, 

Aug.  1. 
MY  DEAR  MOTHER, 

Although  you  doubtless  assist,  as  the  French  phrase 
it,  at  the  reading  of  my  despatches,  you  will,  I  am  sure,  be 
pleased  to  receive  one  direct  from  your  absent  son.  It  has 
just  occurred  to  me  that  I  have  never  yet  mentioned  the 
Spanish  ladies,  and  I  do  not  think  that  I  can  address  anything 
that  I  have  to  say  upon  this  agreeable  subject  to  any  one 
more  suitable  than  yourself.  You  know  that  I  am  rather  an 
admirer  of  the  blonde;  and,  to  be  perfectly  candid,  I  will 
confess  to  you  that  the  only  times  which  I  have  been  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  captivated,  or  captured,  in  this  country 
were  both  by  Englishwomen.  But  these  Espagnolas  are 
nevertheless  very  interesting  personages.  What  we  associate 
with  the  idea  of  female  beauty  is  not  common  in  this  country. 
There  are  none  of  those  seraphic  countenances,  which  strike 
you  dumb  or  blind,  but  faces  in  abundance  which  will  never 
pass  without  commanding  a  pleasing  glance.  Their  charm 
consists  in  their  sensibility;  each  incident,  every  person, 
every  word  touches  the  far  eye  of  a  Spanish  lady,  and  her 
features  are  constantly  confuting  the  creed  of  Mahomet, 
and  proving  that  she  has  a  soul :  but  there  is  nothing  quick, 
harsh,  or  forced  about  her.  She  is  extremely  unaffected,  and 
not  at  all  French.  Her  eyes  gleam  rather  than  sparkle,  she 
speaks  with  quick  vivacity  but  in  sweet  tones,  and  there  is 
in  all  her  carriage,  particularly  when  she  walks,  a  certain 
dignified  grace  which  never  leaves  her,  and  which  is  very 
remarkable.  .  .  . 

I   sat  next  to  a  lady  of  high  distinction  at  a  bull-fight 


150  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  rx 

at  Seville.  She  was  the  daughter-in-law  of  the  Captain- 
General,  and  the  most  beautiful  Spaniard  I  have  yet  met. 
Her  comb  was  white,  and  she  wore  a  mantilla  of  blonde, 
I  have  no  doubt  extremely  valuable,  for  it  was  very 
dirty.  The  effect,  however,  was  charming.  Her  hair  was 
glossy  black,  and  her  eyes  like  an  antelope's,  but  all  her  other 
features  deliciously  soft;  and  she  was  further  adorned, 
which  is  rare  in  Spain,  with  a  rosy  cheek,  for  here  our  heroines 
are  rather  sallow.  But  they  counteract  this  defect  by  never 
appearing  until  twilight,  which  calls  them  from  their  bowers, 
fresh,  though  languid,  from  the  late  siesta.  To  conclude, 
the  only  fault  of  the  Spanish  beauty  is  that  she  too  soon 
indulges  in  the  magnificence  of  embonpoint.  There  are, 
however,  many  exceptions  to  this.  At  seventeen  a  Spanish 
beauty  is  poetical,  tall,  lithe,  and  clear,  though  sallow.  But 
you  have  seen  Mercandotti.1  As  she  advances,  if  she  does  not 
lose  her  shape,  she  resembles  Juno  rather  than  Venus. 
Majestic  she  ever  is  ;  and  if  her  feet  are  less  twinkling  than  in 
her  first  career,  look  on  her  hand  and  you'll  forgive  them  all. 

There  is  calm  voluptuousness  about  the  life  here  that 
wonderfully  accords  with  my  disposition,  so  that  if  I  were  resi- 
dent, and  had  my  intellect  at  command,  I  do  not  know  any 
place  where  I  could  make  it  more  productive.  The  imagination 
is  ever  at  work,  and  beauty  and  grace  are  not  scared  away 
by  those  sounds  and  sights,  those  constant  cares  and  changing 
feelings,  which  are  the  proud  possession  of  our  free  land 
of  eastern  winds.  You  rise  at  eight,  and  should  breakfast 
lightly,  although  a  table  covered  with  all  fruits  renders 
that  rather  difficult  to  one  who  inherits,  with  other  qualities 
good  and  bad,  that  passion  for  the  most  delightful  productions 
of  nature,  with  which  my  beloved  sire  can  sympathise.  I 
only  wish  I  had  him  here  over  a  medley  of  grape  and  melon, 
gourd  and  prickly-pear.  In  the  morning  you  never  quit  the 
house,  and  these  are  hours  which  might  be  profitably  employed 
under  the  inspiration  of  a  climate  which  is  itself  poetry, 
for  it  sheds  over  everything  a  golden  hue  which  does  not  exist 
in  the  objects  themselves  illuminated.  At  present  I  indulge 
only  in  a  calm  reverie,  for  I  find  the  least  exertion  of  mind 
instantly  aggravate  all  my  symptoms ;  and  even  this  letter 
is  an  exertion,  which  you  would  hardly  credit.  My  general 
health  was  never  better.  You  know  how  much  better  I 
am  on  a  sunny  day  in  England ;  well,  I  have  had  two  months 
of  sunny  days  infinitely  warmer.  I  have  during  all  this  period 
enjoyed  general  health  of  which  I  have  no  memory  during  my 
life.  All  the  English  I  have  met  are  ill,  and  live  upon  a  diet. 

1  A  famous  dancer  of  the  day. 


1830]  A   DAY  IN   SPAIN  151 

I  eat  everything,  and  my  appetite  each  day  increases.  .  .  . 
The  Spanish  cuisine  is  not  much  to  my  taste,  for  garlic  and 
bad  oil  preponderate ;  but  it  has  its  points :  the  soups  are 
good,  and  the  most  agreeable  dish  in  the  world  is  an  olio.  I 
will  explain  it  to  you,  for  my  father  would  delight  in  it. 
There  are  two  large  dishes,  one  at  each  end  of  the  table. 
The  one  at  the  top  contains  bouilli  beef,  boiled  pork  sausage, 
black-pudding;  all  these  not  mixed  together,  but  in  their 
separate  portions.  The  other  dish  is  a  medley  of  vegetables 
and  fruits,  generally  French  beans,  caravanseras,  slices  of 
melons,  and  whole  pears.  Help  each  person  to  a  portion  of 
the  meats,  and  then  to  the  medley.  Mix  them  in  your  plate 
together,  and  drown  them  in  tomato  sauce.  There  is  no  garlic 
and  no  grease  of  any  kind.  I  have  eaten  this  every  day,  it 
is  truly  delightful.  .  .  . 

After  dinner  you  take  your  siesta.  I  generally  sleep 
for  two  hours.  I  think  this  practice  conducive  to  health. 
Old  people,  however,  are  apt  to  carry  it  to  excess.  By 
the  time  I  have  risen  and  arranged  my  toilette  it  is  time 
to  steal  out,  and  call  upon  any  agreeable  family  whose 
Tertullia  you  may  choose  to  honour,  which  you  do,  after 
the  first  time,  uninvited,  and  with  them  you  take  your  tea 
or  chocolate.  This  is  often  al  fresco,  under  the  piazza  or 
colonnade  of  the  patio.  Here  you  while  away  the  time  until 
it  is  cool  enough  for  the  alameda  or  public  walk.  At  Cadiz, 
and  even  at  Seville,  up  the  Guadalquivir,  you  are  sure  of  a 
delightful  breeze  from  the  water.  The  sea  breeze  comes  like 
a  spirit.  The  effect  is  quite  magical.  As  you  are  lolling  in 
listless  languor  in  the  hot  and  perfumed  air,  an  invisible  guest 
comes  dancing  into  the  party  and  touches  them  all  with  an 
enchanted  wand.  All  start,  all  smile.  It  has  come ;  it  is  the 
sea  breeze.  There  is  much  discussion  whether  it  is  as  strong, 
or  whether  weaker,  than  the  night  before.  The  ladies  furl 
their  fans  and  seize  their  mantillas,  the  cavaliers  stretch  their 
legs  and  give  signs  of  life.  All  rise.  I  offer  my  arm  to 
Dolores  or  Florentina  (is  not  this  familiarity  strange  ?),  and  in 
ten  minutes  you  are  in  the  alameda.  What  a  change  !  All  is 
now  life  and  liveliness.  Such  bowing,  such  kissing,  such 
fluttering  of  fans,  such  gentle  criticism  of  gentle  friends! 
But  the  fan  is  the  most  wonderful  part  of  the  whole  scene. 
A  Spanish  lady  with  her  fan  might  shame  the  tactics  of  a  troop 
of  horse.  Now  she  unfurls  it  with  the  slow  pomp  and  conscious 
elegance  of  a  peacock.  Now  she  flutters  it  with  all  the  languor 
of  a  listless  beauty,  now  with  all  the  liveliness  of  a  vivacious 
one.  Now,  in  the  midst  of  a  very  tornado,  she  closes  it  with 
a  whir  which  makes  you  start,  pop  !  In  the  midst  of  your 
confusion  Dolores  taps  you  on  the  elbow;  you  turn  round 


152  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

to  listen,  and  Florentina  pokes  you  in  your  side.  Magical 
instrument !  You  know  that  it  speaks  a  particular  language, 
and  gallantry  requires  no  other  mode  to  express  its  most 
subtle  conceits  or  its  most  unreasonable  demands  than  this 
slight,  delicate  organ.  But  remember,  while  you  read,  that 
here,  as  in  England,  it  is  not  confined  alone  to  your  delightful 
sex.  I  also  have  my  fan,  which  makes  my  cane  extremely 
jealous.  If  you  think  I  have  grown  extraordinarily  effeminate, 
learn  that  in  this  scorching  clime  the  soldier  will  not  mount 
guard  without  one.  Night  wears  on,  we  sit,  we  take  a  panal, 
which  is  as  quick  work  as  snapdragon,  and  far  more  elegant ; 
again  we  stroll.  Midnight  clears  the  public  walks,  but  few 
Spanish  families  retire  till  two.  A  solitary  bachelor  like  myself 
still  wanders,  or  still  lounges  on  a  bench  in  the  warm  moonlight. 
The  last  guitar  dies  away,  the  cathedral  clock  wakes  up  your 
reverie,  you  too  seek  your  couch,  and  amid  a  gentle,  sweet  flow 
of  loveliness,  and  light,  and  music,  and  fresh  air,  thus  dies  a 
day  in  Spain. 
Adieu,  my  dearest  mother.  A  thousand  loves  to  all.1 

B.  DISRAELI. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

GlBRAXTAB, 

Aug.  9. 

Mr  DEAR  SA, 

We  arrived  here  2  yesterday  tired  to  death,  but  very  well. 
The  Mediterranean  packet  is  expected  hourly,  and  I  lose  not 
a  moment  in  writing  to  you,  which  I  do  in  compliment  to  your 
most  welcome  letter  which  awaited  me  here,  and  which, 
though  short  enough,  was  most  sweet.  The  very  long  one 
about  all  the  things  I  want  to  know  makes  my  mouth  water. 
.  .  .  In  regard  to  any  plans,  we  are  certainly  off  next 
packet.  No  farther  can  I  aver.  What  use  are  plans  ?  Did 
I  dream  six  months  ago  of  Andalusia,  where  I  have  spent 
some  of  the  most  agreeable  hours  of  my  existence  ?  Such  a 
trip !  Such  universal  novelty,  and  such  unrivalled  luck  in 
all  things !  .  .  . 

This  is  the  country  for  a  national  novelist.  The  alfresco 
life  of  the  inhabitants  induces  a  variety  of  the  most  pictu- 
resque manners;  their  semi-savageness  makes  each  district 
retain  with  barbarous  jealousy  its  own  customs  and  its  own 
costumes.  A  weak  government  resolves  society  into  its 

1  Letters,  p.  17. 

3  They  returned  from  Granada  by  Malaga  and  the  sea. 


1830]  WONDERFUL  SPAIN  153 

original  elements,  and  robbery  becomes  more  honourable 
than  war,  inasmuch  as  the  robber  is  paid  and  the  soldier  in 
arrear.  Then  a  wonderful  ecclesiastical  establishment  covers 
the  land  with  a  privileged  class,  who  are  perpetually  pro- 
ducing some  effect  on  society.  I  say  nothing,  while  writing 
these  lines  —  which  afterwards  may  be  expanded  into  a  picture 
—  of  their  costume.  You  are  awakened  from  your  slumbers 
by  the  rosario  — the  singing  procession  by  which  the  peasantry 
congregate  to  their  labours.  It  is  most  effective,  full  of  noble 
chants  and  melodious  responses,  that  break  upon  the  still 
fresh  air  and  your  even  fresher  feelings  in  a  manner  truly 
magical. 

Oh,  wonderful  Spain!  Think  of  this  romantic  land 
covered  with  Moorish  ruins  and  full  of  Murillo!  Ah  that 
I  could  describe  to  you  the  wonders  of  the  painted 
temples  of  Seville !  ah  that  I  could  wander  with  you  amid 
the  fantastic  and  imaginative  halls  of  delicate  Alhambra ! 
Why,  why  cannot  I  convey  to  you  more  perfectly  all  that  I 
see  and  feel?  I  thought  that  enthusiasm  was  dead  within 
me,  and  nothing  could  be  new.  I  have  hit  perhaps  upon 
the  only  country  which  could  have  upset  my  theory  —  a 
country  of  which  I  have  read  little  and  thought  nothing —  a 
country  of  which  indeed  nothing  has  been  of  late  written,  and 
which  few  visit.  I  dare  to  say  I  am  better.  This  last  fort- 
night I  have  made  regular  progress,  or  rather  felt  perhaps  the 
progress  which  I  had  already  made.  It  is  all  the  sun.  Do 
not  think  that  it  is  society  or  change  of  scene.  This,  however 
occasionally  agreeable,  is  too  much  for  me,  and  even  throws 
me  back.  It  is  when  I  am  quite  alone  and  quite  still  that  I 
feel  the  difference  of  my  system,  that  I  miss  old  aches,  and 
am  conscious  of  the  increased  activity  and  vitality  and  ex- 
pansion of  my  blood.  Write  to  me  whenever  you  can,  always 
to  Malta,  from  whence  I  shall  be  sure  to  receive  my  letters 
sooner  or  later.  If  I  receive  twenty  at  a  time,  it  does  not 
signify;  but  write:  do  not  let  the  chain  of  my  domestic 
knowledge  be  broken  for  an  instant.  Write  to  me  about 
Bradenham,  about  dogs  and  horses,  orchards,  gardens,  who 
calls,  where  you  go,  who  my  father  sees  in  London,  what  is 
said.  This  is  what  I  want.  Never  mind  public  news,  except 
it  be  private  in  its  knowledge,  or  about  private  friends.  I 
see  all  newspapers  sooner  or  later.  .  .  .  Keep  on  writing, 
but  don't  bore  yourself.  Mind  this.  A  thousand  thousand 
loves  to  all.  Adieu,  my  beloved.  We  shall  soon  meet. 
There  is  no  place  like  Bradenham,  and  each  moment  I  feel 
better  I  want  to  come  back.  .  .  . 

B.  D.1 

1  Letters,  p.  22. 


154  TOUR  IN  THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

From  Gibraltar  to  Malta  the  two  friends  had  '  a  very 
rough  and  disagreeable  voyage,  the  wind  —  a  devil  of  a 
levanter,  and  sometimes  sirocco  —  full  in  our  teeth  half  the 
time,  and  not  going,  even  with  the  steam,  more  than 
four  knots  an  hour.'  Their  ship  called  at  Algiers,  and 
there,  though  they  did  not  land,  they  'observed  with 
interest  that  the  tricolor  flag  was  flying,'  a  reminder 
that  this  was  the  summer  of  '  the  three  glorious  days  of 
July.'  At  Malta  they  found  an  old  acquaintance  in 
James  Clay,  in  later  years  a  well-known  member  of  Parlia- 
ment and  the  great  authority  on  whist. 

To  Isaac  D'Israeli. 

MALTA, 

Aug.  27. 

He  has  been  here  a  month,  and  has  already  beat  the  whole 
garrison  at  rackets  and  billiards  and  other  wicked  games,  given 
lessons  to  their  prima  donna,  and  seccatura'd  the  primo 
tenore.  Really  he  has  turned  out  a  most  agreeable  personage, 
and  has  had  that  advantage  of  society  in  which  he  had  been 
deficient,  and  led  a  life  which  for  splendid  adventure  would 
beat  any  young  gentleman's  yet  published  in  three  vols.  post 
8vo.  Lord  Burghersh  wrote  an  opera  for  him,  and  Lady 
Normanby  a  farce.  He  dished  Prince  Pignatelli  at  billiards, 
and  did  the  Russian  Legation  at  ecarte.  I  had  no  need  of 
letters  of  introduction  here,  and  have  already  '  troops  of 
friends.'  The  fact  is,  in  our  original  steam-packet  there  were 
some  very  agreeable  fellows,  officers,  whom  I  believe  I  never 
mentioned  to  you.  They  have  been  long  expecting  your 
worship's  offspring,  and  have  gained  great  fame  in  repeating 
his  third-rate  stories  at  second-hand:  so  in  consequence  of 
these  messengers  I  am  received  with  branches  of  palm.  Here 
the  younkers  do  nothing  but  play  rackets,  billiards,  and 
cards,  race  and  smoke.  To  govern  men,  you  must  either 
excel  them  in  their  accomplishments,  or  despise  them.  Clay 
does  one,  I  do  the  other,  and  we  are  both  equally  popular. 
Affectation  tells  here  even  better  than  wit.  Yesterday,  at 
the  racket  court,  sitting  in  the  gallery  among  strangers, 
the  ball  entered,  and  lightly  struck  me  and  fell  at  my  feet. 
I  picked  it  up,  and  observing  a  young  rifleman  excessively 
stiff,  I  humbly  requested  him  to  forward  its  passage  into  the 
court,  as  I  really  had  never  thrown  a  ball  in  my  life.  This 


1830]  DISRAELI'S   BUFFOONERIES  155 

incident  has  been  the  general  subject  of  conversation  at   all 
the  messes  to-day  ! 1 

Long  afterwards,  when  Disraeli  had  become  famous, 
Clay  appears  to  have  given  a  somewhat  discrepant 
account  of  his  friend's  popularity  with  those  whom  that 
friend  believed  to  be  the  admiring  audience  of  his  affecta- 
tions. '  It  would  not  have  been  possible  to  have  found 
a  more  agreeable,  unaffected  companion  when  they  were 
by  themselves ;  but  when  they  got  into  society,  his  cox- 
combry was  intolerable.  .  .  .  He  made  himself  so  hateful 
to  the  officers'  mess  that,  while  they  welcomed  Clay,  they 
ceased  to  invite  "that  damned  bumptious  Jew  boy.'"2 
There  seems,  indeed,  at  this  time  to  have  been  hardly 
any  limit  to  Disraeli's  '  buffooneries,'  as  he  has  the  grace 
himself  to  call  them.  He  dined  at  a  regimental  mess 
in  an  Andalusian  dress.  He  'paid  a  round  of  visits,' 
writes  Meredith,  'in  his  rnajo  jacket,  white  trousers, 
and  a  sash  of  all  the  colours  in  the  rainbow  ;  in  this 
wonderful  costume  he  paraded  all  round  Valetta,  followed 
by  one-half  the  population  of  the  place,  and,  as  he  said, 
putting  a  complete  stop  to  all  business.  He,  of  course, 
included  the  Governor  and  Lady  Emily  in  his  round, 
to  their  no  small  astonishment.'  The  Governor,  a  brother 
of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb's,  was  *  reputed  a  very  nonchalant 
personage,  and  exceedingly  exclusive  in  his  conduct  to 
his  subjects.'  Disraeli,  however,  was  undismayed. 


To  Isaac  D'lsraeli. 

SUNDAY, 
Aug.  29. 

Yesterday  I  called  on  Ponsonby,  and  he  was  fortunately  at 
home.  I  flatter  myself  that  he  passed  through  the  most  ex- 
traordinary quarter  of  an  hour  of  his  existence.  I  gave  him 
no  quarter,  and  at  last  made  our  nonchalant  Governor  roll  on 
the  sofa,  from  his  risible  convulsions.  Then  I  jumped  up, 
remembered  that  I  must  be  breaking  into  his  morning,  and 

1  Letters,  pp.  31,  32.      2  Sir  William  Gregory's  Autobiography,  p.  95. 


156  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

was  off;  making  it  a  rule  a  ways  to  leave  with  a  good  impres- 
sion. He  pressed  me  not  to  go.  I  told  him  I  had  so  much  to 
do !  .  .  .  When  I  arrived  home  I  found  an  invitation  for 
Tuesday.  .  .  .  Clay  confesses  my  triumph  is  complete 
and  unrivalled.1 


To  Benjamin  Austen. 

MALTA, 

Sept.  14. 

From  Gibraltar  I  arrived  here,  a  place  from  which  I  ex- 
pected little  and  have  found  much.  Valetta  surprises  me  as 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  cities  I  have  ever  visited,  something 
between  Venice  and  Cadiz.  ...  It  has  not  a  single  tree, 
but  the  city  is  truly  magnificent,  full  of  palaces  worthy  of 
Palladio.  I  have  still  illness  enough  to  make  my  life  a 
burthen,  and  as  my  great  friend  the  Sun  is  daily  becoming  less 
powerful,  I  daily  grow  more  dispirited  and  resume  my  old 
style  of  despair.  Had  I  been  cured  by  this  time,  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  to  join  you  in  Italy  —  as  it  is,  I  go  I  know  not 
where,  but  do  not  be  surprised  if  you  hear  something  very 
strange  indeed.  .  .  .  The  smallpox  rages  here  so  des- 
perately that  they  have  put  a  quarantine  of  three  weeks  at 
Sicily,  which  has  prevented  my  trip  to  an  island  I  much  desire 
to  visit.  .  .  .  Write  to  me  about  your  movements,  in 
order  that,  if  possible,  I  may  meet  you  and  seethe  Coliseum  by 
moonlight  with  Madame,  and  all  that.  I  was  told  here  by  a 
person  of  consideration  that  my  father  was  to  be  in  the  new 
batch  of  baronets,  but  I  suppose  this  is  a  lie.  If  it  be  offered  I 
am  sure  he  will  refuse,  but  I  have  no  idea  that  it  will. 


To  Ralph  Disraeli. 

MALTA. 
MY  DEAR  RALPH, 

Mashallah!  Here  I  am  sitting  in  an  easy  chair, 
with  a  Turkish  pipe  six  feet  long,  with  an  amber  mouthpiece 
and  a  porcelain  bowl.  What  a  revolution !  But  what  if  I 
tell  you  that  I  not  only  have  become  a  smoker,  but  the 
greatest  smoker  in  Malta.  The  fact  is  I  find  it  relieves  my 
head.  Barrow,2  who  is  here  in  the  'Blonde,'  .  .  .  has 
given  me  a  meerschaum,  and  Anstruther  a  most  splendid 
Dresden  green  china,  set  in  silver  —  an  extremely  valuable 
pipe  ;  but  there  is  nothing  like  a  meerschaum. 

1  Letters,  p.  38.  2  Younger  son  of  Sir  John  Barrow. 


1830]  MALTA  157 

I  have  spent  some  weeks  here.  Ponsonby,  the  Governor, 
is  a  most  charming  fellow,  and  has  been  most  courteous  to  me. 
His  wife  is  very  plain  and  not  very  popular,  being  grand,  but 
I  rather  like  her.  .  .  .  Do  you  remember  in  ancient  days 
in  Windsor,  the  Royal  Fusiliers  being  quartered  there,  and 
James  swearing  that  the  two  young  subs,  Liddell  and  Lord 
Amelius  Paulet,  were  brothers  of  his  schoolfellows,  and  all 
that  ?  How  curious  life  is.  That  Liddell  is  now  quartered 
here,  and  being  senior  captain  on  the  station  in  the  absence  of 
Fitzclarence,  who  has  gone  home  to  see  his  papa,  he  commands 
the  regiment,  and  has  become  my  most  intimate  friend.  .  .  . 
He  and  another  Fusilier,  by  name  Pery,  the  future  Lord 
Limerick,  are  my  usual  companions.  They  are  both  men  of 
the  world  and  good  company,  forming  a  remarkable  contrast 
to  all  their  brother  officers  forsooth.  A  visit  to  Gibraltar  and 
Malta,  our  two  crack  garrisons,  has  quite  opened  my  eyes  to 
the  real  life  of  a  militaire.  By  heavens !  I  believe  these  fel- 
lows are  boys  till  they  are  majors,  and  sometimes  do  not  even 
stop  there.  .  .  . 

A  week  ago  I  knew  not  what  I  should  do.  All  is  now  settled. 
On  Wednesday  morning  I  quit  this  place,  where  on  the  whole 
I  have  spent  very  agreeable  hours,  in  a  yacht  which  Clay  has 
hired,  and  in  which  he  intends  to  turn  pirate.  The  original 
plan  was  to  have  taken  it  together,  but  Meredith  was  averse 
to  this,  and  we  have  become  his  passengers  at  a  fair  rate, 
and  he  drops  us  whenever  and  wherever  we  like.  You 
should  see  me  in  the  costume  of  a  Greek  pirate.  A  blood-red 
shirt,  with  silver  studs  as  big  as  shillings,  an  immense  scarf 
for  girdle,  full  of  pistols  and  daggers,  red  cap,  red  slippers, 
broad  blue  striped  jacket  and  trousers.  .  .  .  There  is  a  Mrs. 
Pleydell  Bouverie  here,  with  a  pretty  daughter,  cum  mult  is  aliis. 
I  am  sorry  to  say  among  them  a  beauty,  very  dangerous  to 
the  peace  of  your  unhappy  brother.  But  no  more  of  that, 
and  in  a  few  weeks  I  shall  be  bounding,  and  perhaps  seasick, 
upon  the  blue  .^Egean,  and  then  all  will  be  over.  Nothing 
like  an  emetic  in  these  cases.  I  find  I  have  very  little  to  tell 
you,  for  although  each  day  brings  an  infinite  deal  of  nothings, 
which  might  authorise  a  record  over  a  wood  fire  in  the  old 
hall,  they  are  too  slight  to  bear  any  communication  but  an  oral 
one.  So  let  us  hope  that  may  soon  take  place.  I  often  think 
of  you  all.  ...  If  you  hear  of  my  marriage  or  death,  don't 
believe  it,  any  more  than  I  shall  of  our  father  being  in  the  new 
batch  of  baronets,  which  is  here  currently  reported.  Clay  is 
immensely  improved,  and  a  very  agreeable  companion  indeed, 
with  such  a  valet,  Giovanni1  by  name.  Byron  died  in  his 

1  See  Appendix  A. 


158  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

arms,  and  his  mustachios  touch  the  earth.  Withal  mild  as  a 
lamb,  though  he  has  two  daggers  always  about  his  person. 
Our  yacht  is  of  fifty-five  tons,  an  excellent  size  for  these  seas, 
with  a  crew  of  seven  men.  She  is  a  very  strong  sea  boat,  and 
bears  the  unpoetical  title  of  '  Susan,'  which  is  a  bore ;  but  as 
we  can't  alter  it  we  have  painted  it  out.  And  now,  my  dear 
boy,  adieu.  .  .  . 

Your  very  affectionate  brother, 

B.  D.1 

The  '  something  very  strange  '  which  he  had  in  con- 
templation when  he  wrote  to  Austen  from  Malta  is  ex- 
plained in  his  next  letter. 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

When  I  wrote  to  you  last  I  had  some  thoughts,  indeed  had 
resolved,  to  join  the  Turkish  Army  as  volunteer  in  the  Albanian 
war.  I  found,  however,  on  my  arrival  at  Corfu,  whither  for 
this  purpose  I  had  repaired  instead  of  going  to  Egypt,  that  the 
Grand  Vizier,  whilst  all  your  newspapers  were  announcing 
the  final  loss  of  Albania  to  the  Porte,  had  proceeded  with  such 
surprising  energy  that  the  war  which  had  begun  so  magni- 
ficently had  already  dwindled  into  an  insurrection.  I  waited 
a  week  at  Corfu  to  see  how  affairs  would  turn  out ;  at  the  end 
of  which  came  one  of  the  principal  rebels  flying  for  refuge,  and 
after  him  some  others.  Under  these  circumstances  I  deter- 
mined to  turn  my  intended  campaign  into  a  visit  of  congratu- 
lation to  headquarters,  and  Sir  Frederick  Adam  gave  me  a 
letter,  and  with  Meredith  and  Clay,  our  servants,  and  a  guard 
of  Albanians  we  at  last  reached  Yanina,  the  capital  of  the 
province. 

I  can  give  you  no  idea  in  a  letter  of  all  the  Pashas,  and  all 
the  Silictars,  and  all  the  Agas  that  I  have  visited  and  visited 
me;  all  the  pipes  I  smoked,  all  the  coffee  I  sipped,  all  the 
sweetmeats  I  devoured.  .  .  .  For  a  week  I  was  in  a  scene 
equal  to  anything  in  the  Arabian  Nights  —  such  processions, 
such  dresses,  such  corteges  of  horsemen,  siich  caravans  of 
camels.  Then  the  delight  of  being  made  much  of  by  a  man 
who  was  daily  decapitating  half  the  Province.  Every  morning 
we  paid  visits,  attended  reviews,  and  crammed  ourselves  with 
sweetmeats ;  every  evening  dancers  and  singers  were  sent  to 
our  quarters  by  the  Vizier  or  some  Pasha.  .  .  . 

1  Letters,  p.  34. 


1830]  ALBANIA  159 

I  am  quite  a  Turk,  wear  a  turban,  smoke  a  pipe  six  feet  long, 
and  squat  on  a  divan.  Mehemet  Pasha  told  me  that  he  did 
not  think  I  was  an  Englishman  because  I  walked  so  slow :  in 
fact  I  find  the  habits  of  this  calm  and  luxurious  people  en- 
tirely agree  with  my  own  preconceived  opinions  of  propriety 
and  enjoyment,  and  I  detest  the  Greeks  more  than  ever.  You 
have  no  idea  of  the  rich  and  various  costume  of  the  Levant. 
When  I  was  presented  to  the  Grand  Vizier  I  made  up  such 
a  costume  from  my  heterogeneous  wardrobe  that  the  Turks, 
who  are  mad  on  the  subject  of  dress,  were  utterly  as- 
tounded. ...  I  had  a  regular  crowd  round  our  quarters 
and  had  to  come  forward  to  bow  like  Don  Miguel  and  Donna 
Maria.  Nothing  would  persuade  the  Greeks  that  we  were  not 
come  about  the  new  King,  and  I  really  believe  that  if  I  had 
£25,000  to  throw  away  I  might  increase  my  headache  by 
wearing  a  crown. 

Meredith  gives  details  of  the  costume  which  produced 
so  great  an  impression.  'Figure  to  yourself,'  he  writes, 
4  a  shirt  entirely  red,  with  silver  studs  as  large  as  six- 
pences, green  pantaloons  with  a  velvet  stripe  down  the 
sides,  and  a  silk  Albanian  shawl  with  a  long  fringe  of 
divers  colours  round  his  waist,  red  Turkish  slippers,  and 
to  complete  all  his  Spanish  majo  jacket  covered  with  em- 
broidery and  ribbons.'  '  Questo  vestito  Inglese  o  di  fan- 
tasia ? '  asked  a  '  little  Greek  physician  who  had  passed  a 
year  at  Pisa  in  his  youth.'  '  Inglese  e  fantastico  '  was  the 
oracular  reply. 

A  long  letter  written  immediately  after  the  return 
from  Yanina  gives  a  highly-coloured  account,  full  of 
vivid  and  picturesque  detail,  of  all  Disraeli  saw  and  felt 
during  '  this  wondrous  week  '  in  Albania ;  it  contains 
among  other  things  an  excellent  piece  of  comedy  in  the 
description  of  a  festive  evening  on  the  journey  up  from 
Arta. 


To  Isaac  D>  Israeli. 


PREVESA, 

Oct.  25. 


.    .    .    Two  hours  before  sunset,  having  completed  only  half 
our  course  in  spite  of  all  our  exertions,  we  found  ourselves  at  a 


160  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

vast  but  dilapidated  khan  as  big  as  a  Gothic  castle,  situated  on 
a  high  range,  and  built  as  a  sort  of  half-way  house  for  travellers 
by  Ali  Pasha  when  his  long,  gracious,  and  unmolested  reign 
had  permitted  him  to  turn  this  unrivalled  country,  which 
combines  all  the  excellences  of  Southern  Europe  and  Western 
Asia,  to  some  of  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  fitted.  This 
khan  had  now  been  turned  into  a  military  post ;  and  here 
we  found  a  young  Bey,  to  whom  Kalio1  had  given  us  a  letter 
in  case  of  our  stopping  for  an  hour.  He  was  a  man  of  very 
pleasing  exterior,  but  unluckily  could  not  understand  Gio- 
vanni's Greek,  and  had  no  interpreter.  What  was  to  be 
done  ?  We  could  not  go  on,  as  there  was  not  an  inhabited 
place  before  Yanina ;  and  here  were  we  sitting  before  sunset 
on  the  same  divan  with  our  host,  who  had  entered  the  place  to 
receive  us,  and  would  not  leave  the  room  while  we  were  there, 
without  the  power  of  communicating  an  idea.  We  were  in 
despair,  and  we  were  also  very  hungry,  and  could  not  therefore 
in  the  course  of  an  hour  or  two  plead  fatigue  as  an  excuse  for 
sleep,  for  we  were  ravenous  and  anxious  to  know  what  prospect 
of  food  existed  in  this  wild  and  desolate  mansion.  So  we 
smoked.  It  is  a  great  resource,  but  this  wore  out,  and  it  was 
so  ludicrous  smoking,  and  looking  at  each  other,  and  dying  to 
talk,  and  then  exchanging  pipes  by  way  of  compliment,  and 
then  pressing  our  hand  to  our  heart  by  way  of  thanks. 

The  Bey  sat  in  a  corner,  I  unfortunately  next,  so  I  had  the 
onus  of  mute  attention ;  and  Clay  next  to  me,  so  he  and  M.  could 
at  least  have  an  occasional  joke,  though  of  course  we  were 
too  well-bred  to  exceed  an  occasional  and  irresistible  observa- 
tion. Clay  wanted  to  play  ecarte,  and  with  a  grave  face,  as 
if  we  were  at  our  devotions ;  but  just  as  we  were  about 
commencing,  it  occurred  to  us  that  we  had  some  brandy, 
and  that  we  would  offer  our  host  a  glass,  as  it  might  be  a 
hint  for  what  should  follow  to  so  vehement  a  schnaps. 
Mashallah!  Had  the  effect  only  taken  place  1830  years 
ago,  instead  of  in  the  present  age  of  scepticism,  it  would 
have  been  instantly  voted  a  first-rate  miracle.  Our  mild 
friend  smacked  his  lips  and  instantly  asked  for  another  cup ; 
we  drank  it  in  coffee  cups.  By  the  time  that  Meredith  had 
returned,  who  had  left  the  house  on  pretence  of  shooting, 
Clay,  our  host,  and  myself  had  despatched  a  bottle  of  brandy 
in  quicker  time  and  fairer  proportions  than  I  ever  did  a 
bottle  of  Burgundy,  and  were  extremely  gay.  Then  he 
would  drink  again  with  Meredith  and  ordered  some  figs, 
talking  I  must  tell  you  all  the  time,  indulging  in  the  most 
graceful  pantomime,  examining  our  pistols,  offering  us  his 
own  golden  ones  for  our  inspection,  and  finally  making  out 

1  The  Governor  of  Arta. 


1830]  A  FESTIVE  EVENING  161 

Giovanni's  Greek  enough  to  misunderstand  most  ludicrously 
every  observation  we  communicated.  But  all  was  taken  in 
good  part,  and  I  never  met  such  a  jolly  fellow  in  the  course 
of  my  life.  In  the  meantime  we  were  ravenous,  for  the  dry, 
round,  unsugary  fig  is  a  great  whetter.  At  last  we  insisted 
upon  Giovanni's  communicating  our  wants  and  asking  for 
bread.  The  Bey  gravely  bowed  and  said,  <  Leave  it  to  me ; 
take  no  thought/  and  nothing  more  occurred.  We  prepared 
ourselves  for  hungry  dreams,  when  to  our  great  delight  a 
most  capital  supper  was  brought  in,  accompanied,  to  our 
great  horror,  by  —  wine.  We  ate,  we  drank,  we  ate  with  our 
fingers,  we  drank  in  a  manner  I  never  recollect.  The  wine 
was  not  bad,  but  if  it  had  been  poison  we  must  drink  ;  it  was 
such  a  compliment  for  a  Moslemin;  we  quaffed  it  in  rivers. 
The  Bey  called  for  the  brandy ;  he  drank  it  all.  The  room 
turned  round  ;  the  wild  attendants  who  sat  at  our  feet  seemed 
dancing  in  strange  and  fantastic  whirls  ;  the  Bey  shook  hands 
with  me  ;  he  shouted  English  —  I  Greek.  '  Very  good '  he  had 
caught  up  from  us.  '  Kalo,  kalo'  was  my  rejoinder.  He 
roared ;  I  smacked  him  on  the  back.  I  remember  no  more. 
In  the  middle  of  the  night  I  woke.  I  found  myself  sleeping 
on  the  divan,  rolled  up  in  its  sacred  carpet;  the  Bey  had 
wisely  reeled  to  the  fire.  The  thirst  I  felt  was  like  that  of 
Dives.  All  were  sleeping  except  two,  who  kept  up  during  the 
night  the  great  wood  fire.  I  rose  lightly,  stepping  over  my 
sleeping  companions,  and  the  shining  arms  that  here  and  there 
informed  me  that  the  dark  mass  wrapped  up  in  a  capote  was 
a  human  being.  I  found  Abraham's  bosom  in  a  flagon  of 
water.  I  think  I  must  have  drunk  a  gallon  at  the  draught. 
I  looked  at  the  wood  fire  and  thought  of  the  blazing  blocks 
in  the  hall  at  Bradenham,  asked  myself  whether  I  was  indeed 
in  the  mountain  fastness  of  an  Albanian  chief,  and,  shrugging 
my  shoulders,  went  to  bed  and  woke  without  a  headache. 
We  left  our  jolly  host  with  regret.  I  gave  him  my  pipe  as  a 
memorial  of  having  got  tipsy  together.  .  .  . 

In  the  same  letter  there  is  a  vivid  description  of  the 
scene  in  the  Hall  of  Audience  at  Yanina. 

An  hour  having  been  fixed  for  the  audience,  we  repaired 
to  the  celebrated  fortress-palace  of  Ali,  which,  though  greatly 
battered  in  successive  sieges,  is  still  inhabitable,  and  yet 
affords  a  very  fair  idea  of  its  old  magnificence.  Having 
passed  the  gates  of  the  fortress,  we  found  ourselves  in  a 
number  of  small  streets,  like  those  in  the  liberties  of  the 
Tower,  or  any  other  old  castle,  all  full  of  life,  stirring  and  ex- 
cited ;  then  we  came  to  a  grand  place,  in  which  on  an  ascent 
stands  the  Palace.  We  hurried  through  courts  and  corridors, 

VOL.  I  —  M 


162  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

all  full  of  guards,  and  pages,  and  attendant  chiefs,  and  in  fact 
every  species  of  Turkish  population,  for  in  these  countries 
one  head  does  everything,  and  we  with  our  sub-division  of 
labour  and  intelligent  and  responsible  deputies  have  no 
idea  of  the  labour  of  a  Turkish  Premier.  At  length  we  came 
to  a  vast,  irregular  apartment,  serving  as  the  immediate  ante- 
chamber to  the  Hall  of  Audience.  This  was  the  finest  thing 
I  have  ever  yet  seen.  In  the  whole  course  of  my  life  I  never 
met  anything  so  picturesque,  and  cannot  expect  to  do  so 
again.  I  do  not  attempt  to  describe  it ;  but  figure  to  yourself 
the  largest  chamber  that  you  ever  were  perhaps  in,  full  of  the 
choicest  groups  of  an  Oriental  population,  each  individual 
waiting  by  appointment  for  an  audience,  and  probably  about 
to  wait  for  ever.  In  this  room  we  remained,  attended  by  the 
Austrian  Consul  who  presented  us,  about  ten  minutes  —  too 
short  a  time.  I  never  thought  that  I  could  have  lived  to  have 
wished  to  kick  my  heels  in  a  minister's  ante-chamber.  Sud- 
denly we  are  summoned  to  the  awful  presence  of  the  pillar 
of  the  Turkish  Empire,  the  man  who  has  the  reputation  of 
being  the  mainspring  of  the  new  system  of  regeneration,  the 
renowned  Reschid,  an  approved  warrior,  a  consummate  poli- 
tician, unrivalled  as  a  dissembler  in  a  country  where  dissim- 
ulation is  the  principal  portion  of  their  moral  culture. 

The  Hall  was  vast,  built  by  Ali  Pasha  purposely  to  receive 
the  largest  Gobelins  carpet  that  was  ever  made,  which  be- 
longed to  the  chief  chamber  in  Versailles,  and  was  sold  to 
him  in  the  Revolution.  It  is  entirely  covered  with  gilding 
and  arabesques.  Here,  squatted  upon  a  corner  of  the  large 
divan,  I  bowed  with  all  the  nonchalance  of  St.  James's 
Street  to  a  little  ferocious-looking,  shrivelled,  care-worn 
man,  plainly  dressed,  with  a  brow  covered  with  wrinkles, 
and  a  countenance  clouded  with  anxiety  and  thought.  I 
entered  the  shed-like  divan  of  the  kind  and  comparatively 
insignificant  Kalio  Bey  with  a  feeling  of  awe ;  I  seated  myself 
on  the  divan  of  the  Grand  Vizier  ('  who,'  the  Austrian  Consul 
observed,  'has  destroyed  in  the  course  of  the  last  three 
months,'  not  in  war,  'upwards  of  four  thousand  of  my 
acquaintance')  with  the  self-possession  of  a  morning  call. 
At  a  distance  from  us,  in  a  group  on  his  left  hand,  were  his 
secretary  and  his  immediate  suite ;  the  end  of  the  saloon 
was  lined  by  lacqueys  in  waiting,  with  an  odd  name  which 
I  now  forget,  and  which  you  will  find  in  the  glossary  of 
Anastasius.  Some  compliments  now  passed  between  us,  and 
pipes  and  coffee  were  then  brought  by  four  of  these  lacqueys ; 
then  his  Highness  waved  his  hand,  and  in  an  instant  the 
chamber  was  cleared.  Our  conversation  I  need  not  repeat. 
We  congratulated  him  on  the  pacification  of  Albania. 


1830]  THE   HALL   OF   AUDIENCE  163 

He  rejoined,  that  the  peace  of  the  world  was  his  only 
object,  and  the  happiness  of  mankind  his  only  wish ;  this 
went  on  for  the  usual  time.  He  asked  us  no  questions 
about  ourselves  or  our  country,  as  the  other  Turks  did,  but 
seemed  quite  overwhelmed  with  business,  moody  and  anxious. 
While  we  were  with  him,  three  separate  Tartars  arrived  with 
despatches.  What  a  life  !  and  what  a  slight  chance  for  the 
gentlemen  in  the  ante-chamber !  * 

This  letter  to  his  father,  like  the  previous  letter  to 
Austen,  breathes  in  nearly  every  line  a  spirit  of  intense 
delight  in  all  the  splendour  and  circumstance  of  the  East, 
The  buzz  and  bustle  of  the  swarming  population, 
'arrayed  in  every  possible  and  fanciful  costume';  the 
brilliant  colours  of  the  military  chieftains  ;  the  scribe  with 
the  writing  material  in  his  girdle  ;  the  call  of  the  muezzin 
from  the  minaret;  the  salute  of  the  passing  dervish  ;  the 
'wild  unearthly  drum'  that  heralds  the  approach  of  a 
caravan  and  the  stately  camel  that  follows  at  the  head 
of  '  an  almost  interminable  procession  of  his  Arabian 
brethren';  for  all  such  sights  and  sounds  he  has  eager 
eyes  and  ears,  and  he  records  them  with  an  exultation  that 
betrays  an  access  of  Orientalism.  But  before  the  letter 
closes  Europe  triumphs  over  Asia  and  with  perhaps  un- 
conscious art  he  ends  with  the  following  palinode  :  — 

I  write  you  this  from  that  Ambracian  Gulf  where  the  soft 
Triumvir  gained  more  glory  by  defeat  than  attends  the  victory 
of  harsher  warriors.  The  site  is  not  unworthy  of  the  beauty 
of  Cleopatra.  From  the  summit  of  the  land  this  gulf  appears 
like  a  vast  lake  walled  in  on  all  sides  by  mountains  more  or 
less  distant.  The  dying  glory  of  a  Grecian  eve  bathes  with 
warm  light  a  thousand  promontories  and  gentle  bays,  and 
infinite  modulations  of  purple  outline.  Before  me  is  Olympus, 
whose  austere  peak  glitters  yet  in  the  sun ;  a  bend  of  the 
land  alone  hides  from  me  the  islands 2  of  Ulysses  and  of 
Sappho.  When  I  gaze  upon  this  scene  I  remember  the  barbaric 
splendour  and  turbulent  existence  which  I  have  just  quitted 

1  Letters,  p.  40-47. 

2  Ithaca  and    Leucadia.     Disraeli  no  doubt  had  in  mind  his  Byron 
(Childe  Harold,  II.,  39).    It  was  from 

'  Leucadia's  far  projecting  rock  of  woe  ' 

that  Sappho,  according  to  the  very  doubtful  story,  flung  herself  into  the 
sea.  Lesbos,  her  island  home,  was  of  course  far  away  off  the  coast  of 
Asia  Minor. 


164  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

with  disgust.  I  recur  to  the  feelings  in  the  indulgence  of 
which  I  can  alone  find  happiness,  and  from  which  an  inexorable 
destiny  seems  resolved  to  shut  me  out.1 

'  I  wander  in  pursuit  of  health,'  he  wrote  in  another 
letter,  'like  the  immortal  exile  in  pursuit  of  that  lost 
shore,  which  is  now  almost  glittering  in  my  sight.  Five 
years  of  my  life  have  been  already  wasted,  and  some- 
times I  think  my  pilgrimage  may  be  as  long  as  that  of 
Ulysses.  Their  '  yacht,'  he  told  Austen,  was  '  the 
only  mode  of  travel  for  this  sea,  where  every  headland 
and  bay  is  the  site  of  something  memorable,  and  which 
is  studded  with  islands  that  demand  a  visit. 


To  Isaac  D' Israeli. 

We  sailed  from  Prevesa  through  the  remaining  Ionian 
islands,  among  which  was  Zante,  pre-eminent  in  beauty; 
indeed,  they  say  none  of  the  Cyclades  is  to  be  compared  to 
it,  with  its  olive  trees  touching  the  waves  and  its  shores 
undulating  in  every  possible  variety.  For  about  a  fortnight  we 
were  for  ever  sailing  on  a  summer  sea,  always  within  two 
or  three  miles  of  the  coast,  and  touching  at  every  island  or 
harbour  that  invited.  A  cloudless  sky,  a  summer  atmosphere, 
and  sunsets  like  the  neck  of  a  dove,  completed  all  the  enjoy- 
ment which  I  anticipated  from  roving  in  a  Grecian  sea.  We 
were,  however,  obliged  to  keep  a  sharp  look-out  for  pirates, 
who  are  all  about  again.  We  exercised  the  crew  every  day 
with  muskets,  and  their  increasing  prowess  and  our  pistol 
exercise  kept  up  our  courage.2 

They  spent  a  week  at  Navarino,  'the  scene  of 
Codrington's  bloody  blunder,  a  superb,  perhaps  un- 
rivalled harbour,  with  the  celebrated  Sphacteria  on 
one  side  and  old  Pylus  on  the  other.  Here  we  found 
the  French  in  their  glory.  They  have  already  covered 
the  scene  of  Spartan  suffering  with  cafes  and  billiard 
rooms  and  make  daily  picnics  to  the  grotto  of  Nestor.' 
From  Napoli,  where  they  also  lingered,  the  travellers 
made  excursions  to  Corinth,  Argos,  and  Mycenae ;  and 
finally,  on  Nov.  24,  they  cast  anchor  in  the  Piraeus. 

1  Letters,  p.  47.  2  Ibid.,  p.  48. 


1830]  ATHENS  165 

To  Isaac  D Israeli. 

ATHENS, 

Nov.  30. 

On  the  afternoon  of  our  arrival  in  Piraeus,  which  is  about  five 
miles  from  the  city,  I  climbed  a  small  hill,  forming  the  side 
of  the  harbour.  From  it  I  looked  upon  an  immense  plain 
covered  with  olive  woods  and  skirted  by  mountains.  Some 
isolated  hills  rise  at  a  distance  from  the  bounding  ridge.  On 
one  of  these  I  gazed  upon  a  magnificent  temple,  bathed  in  the 
sunset ;  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  was  a  walled  city  of  considerable 
dimensions,  in  front  of  which  a  Doric  temple  apparently  quite 
perfect.  The  violet  sunset  —  and  to-day  the  tint  was  peculiarly 
vivid  —  threw  over  this  scene  a  colouring  becoming  its  beauty, 
and  if  possible  increasing  its  delicate  character.  The  city  was 
Athens;  but  independent  of  all  reminiscences,  I  never  wit- 
nessed anything  so  truly  beautiful,  and  I  have  seen  a  great 
deal. 

We  were  fortunate.  The  Acropolis,  which  has  been  shut 
for  nine  years,  was  open  to  us,  the  first  Englishmen.  Athens 
is  still  in  the  power  of  the  Turks,  but  the  Grecian  Commission 
to  receive  it  arrived  a  short  time  before  us.  When  we  entered 
the  city,  we  found  every  house  roofless  ;  but  really,  before  the 
war,  modern  Athens  must  have  been  no  common  town. 
The  ancient  remains  have  been  respected  ;  the  Parthenon,  and 
the  other  temples  which  are  in  the  Acropolis,  have  necessarily 
suffered  during  the  siege,  but  the  injury  is  only  in  the  detail ; 
the  general  effect  is  not  marred.  We  saw  hundreds  of  shells 
and  balls  lying  about  the  ruins.  The  temple  of  Theseus  looks 
at  a  short  distance  as  if  it  were  just  finished  by  Pericles.1 

'Of  all  that  I  have  yet  visited,'  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Austen,  '  nothing  has  more  completely  realized  all  that 
I  imagined  and  all  that  I  could  have  wished  than  Athens.' 
In  spite,  however,  of  this  momentary  enthusiasm  there 
was  not  much  real  sympathy  between  Disraeli's  genius 
and  the  pure  Hellenic  spirit,  and  education  had  done 
little  to  foster  any  that  nature  had  implanted  in  him. 
'  Pleasant  Argos  and  rich  Mycenae,  the  tomb  of 
Agamemnon  and  the  palace  of  Clytemnestra,'  inspired 
in  Contarini  Fleming  thoughts  that  were  not  unworthy 
of  the  scene :  — 

1  Ibid.,  p.  49.  In  Contarini  Fleming  he  corrected  « Pericles '  into 
Cimon. 


166  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

The  fortunes  of  the  House  of  Atreus  form  the  noblest  of 
all  legends.  I  believe  in  that  destiny  before  which  the 
ancients  bowed.  Modern  philosophy,  with  its  superficial 
discoveries,  has  infused  into  the  breast  of  man  a  spirit  of 
scepticism ;  but  I  think  that,  ere  long,  science  will  again 
become  imaginative,  and  that  as  we  become  more  profound, 
we  may  become  also  more  credulous.  Destiny  is  our  will, 
and  our  will  is  our  nature.  .  .  .  All  is  mystery,  but 
he  is  a  slave  who  will  not  struggle  to  penetrate  the  dark 
veil.1 

In  the  legend  of  the  House  of  Atreus  and  the  tragic 
idea  of  destiny  that  underlies  it  we  are  in  touch  with  the 
Oriental  background  of  Hellenic  civilisation,  and  here 
Disraeli  is  at  home.  Within  sight  of  the  Parthenon 
his  thoughts  are  still  turned  towards  the  East.  '  In  art 
the  Greeks  were  the  children  of  the  Egyptians,'  observes 
Contarini,  and  there  was  more  orginality  in  the  ob- 
servation in  those  days  than  there  would  be  in  ours. 
But  Athens  stands  for  literature  as  well  as  art,  and 
presently  the  memory  of  early  sufferings  from  grammar 
and  lexicon  supervenes.  '  The  Greeks,  who  were  masters 
of  composition,  were  ignorant  of  all  languages  but  their 
own.'  Now  that  every  nation  has  in  its  own  tongue  a 
record  of  all  knowledge,  let  education  be  confined  to  the 
national  literature.  To  the  few  who  have  leisure  or 
inclination  to  study  foreign  literatures  he  would  say,  '  Why 
not  study  the  Oriental  ?  Surely  in  the  pages  of  the  Per- 
sians and  the  Arabs  we  might  discover  new  sources  of 
emotion,  new  modes  of  expression,  new  trains  of 
ideas,  new  principles  of  invention,  and  new  bursts  of 
fancy.'  These  are  Contarini's  'meditations  amid  the 
ruins  of  Athens '  ;  these  and  one  of  those  defiant  out- 
bursts of  racial  scorn  for  the  Northern  barbarians  among 
whom  he  lived,  which  became  more  frequent  with 
Disraeli  at  a  later  date :  — 

With  horror  I  remember  that,  through  some  mysterious 
necessity,  civilisation  seems  to  have  deserted  the  most 

1  Contarini  Fleming,  Pt.  V.  ch.  18. 


1830]  DISRAELI   AND  HELLENISM  167 

favoured  regions  and  the  choicest  intellects.  The  Persian, 
whose  very  being  is  poetry,  the  Arab,  whose  subtle  inind 
could  penetrate  into  the  very  secret  shrine  of  Nature,  the 
Greek,  whose  acute  perceptions  seemed  granted  only  for  the 
creation  of  the  beautiful  —  these  are  now  unlettered  slaves 
in  barbarous  lands.  The  arts  are  yielded  to  the  flat-nosed 
Franks.  And  they  toil,  and  study,  and  invent  theories  to 
account  for  their  own  incompetence.  Now  it  is  the  climate, 
now  the  religion,  now  the  government ;  everything  but  the 
truth,  everything  but  the  mortifying  suspicion  that  their 
organization  may  be  different,  and  that  they  may  be  as  distinct 
a  race  from  their  models  as  they  undoubtedly  are  from  the 
Kalmuck  and  the  Negro.1 

The  travellers  made,  of  course,  an  expedition  to 
Marathon,  where,  however,  discomfort  seems  to  have 
effaced  in  Disraeli's  mind  the  memory  of  its  heroic  past. 
4 1  can  give  you  no  idea  of  the  severe  hardship  and 
privation  of  present  Grecian  travel.  Happy  are  we  to 
get  a  shed  for  nightly  shelter,  and  never  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  find  one  not  swarming  with  vermin. 
My  sufferings  in  this  way  are  great.'  They  'lived  for 
a  week  on  the  wild  boar  of  Pentelicus  and  the  honey  of 
Hymettus,  both  very  good,'  though  the  former,  apparently, 
was  '  not  as  good  as  Bradenham  pork '  :  and  then 
early  in  December  they  continued  their  voyage  round 
Sunium,  of  which  they  had  '  a  most  splendid  view,'  and 
through  '  the  clustering  Cyclades '  to  Constantinople. 

We  have  reached  the  Dardanelles,  a  capital  passage  —  what 
a  road  to  a  great  city !  —  narrower  and  much  longer  than  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar,  but  not  with  such  sublime  shores.  Asia 
and  Europe  look  more  kindly  on  each  other  than  Europe  and 
her  more  sultry  sister. 

The  breeze  has  again  sprung  up;  we  have  one  hundred 
and  thirty  miles  to  Constantinople. 

It  is  near  sunset,  and  Constantinople  is  in  full  sight ;  it 
baffles  all  description,  though  so  often  described.  An  immense 
mass  of  buildings,  cupolas,  cypress  groves,  and  minarets. 
I  feel  an  excitement  which  I  thought  was  dead.2 

1  Ibid.,  Pt.  V.  ch.  19.  2  Letters,  p.  50. 


168  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

On  a  closer  view  the  far-famed  city  did  not  disappoint 
him. 

To  Isaac  D>  Israeli. 

CONSTANTINOPLE, 

Jan.  11,  1831. 

I  leave  Constantinople  to  your  imagination.  Cypress 
groves  and  mosquish  domes,  masses  of  habitations  grouped 
on  gentle  acclivities  rising  out  of  the  waters,  millions  of 
minarets,  a  sea  like  a  river  covered  with  innumerable  long 
thin  boats  as  swift  as  gondolas,  and  far  more  gay,  being  carved 
and  gilt  —  all  these,  and  then  when  filled  with  a  swarming 
population  in  rich  and  brilliant  and  varied  costume,  will 
afford  you  a  more  lively,  and  certainly  not  a  more  incorrect, 
idea  than  half  a  dozen  pages  worthy  of  Horace  Smith. 

There  are  two  things  here  which  cannot  be  conceived  without 
inspection  —  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Bazaar.  Conceive  the 
ocean  not  broader  than  the  Thames  at  Gravesend,  with 
shores  with  all  the  variety  and  beauty  of  the  Rhine,  covered 
with  palaces,  mosques,  villages,  groves  of  cypress,  and  woods 
of  Spanish  chestnuts ;  the  view  of  the  Euxine  at  the  end  is 
the  most  sublime  [and  mystical]  l  thing  I  can  remember.  The 
Bazaar  would  delight  you  more  than  the  Bosphorus.  Fancy 
the  Burlington  Arcade,  or  some  of  the  Parisian  passages  and 
panoramas ;  fancy  perhaps  a  square  mile  of  ground  covered 
with  these  arcades  intersecting  each  other  in  all  directions  and 
full  of  every  product  of  the  empire,  from  diamonds  to  dates. 
The  magnificence,  novelty,  and  variety  of  the  goods  on  sale, 
the  whole  nation  of  shopkeepers  all  in  different  dress,  the 
crowds  of  buyers  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  are  just  to  be 
hinted  at. 

Here  every  people  have  a  characteristic  costume.  Turks, 
Greeks,  Jews,  and  Armenians  are  the  staple  population ; 
the  latter  seem  to  predominate.  The  Armenians  wear  round 
and  very  unbecoming  black  caps  and  robes;  the  Jews  a 
black  hat  wreathed  with  a  white  handkerchief;  the  Greeks 
black  turbans ;  the  Turks  indulge  in  all  combinations  of 
costume.  The  meanest  merchant  in  the  Bazaar  looks  like 
a  Sultan  in  an  Eastern  fairy  tale.  This  is  merely  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  marvellous  brilliancy  of  their  dyes,  which  is 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  circumstances  in  their  social  life, 
and  which  never  has  been  explained  to  me.  A  common 
pair  of  slippers  that  you  push  on  in  the  street  is  tinged  of  a 
vermilion  or  a  lake  so  extraordinary  that  I  can  compare  their 
colour  to  nothing  but  the  warmest  beam  of  a  summer  sunset. 

1  The  words  in  brackets  are  from  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Austen. 


1831]  CONSTANTINOPLE  169 

We  have  seen  the  Sultan 1  several  times.  He  affects  all  the 
affable  activity  of  a  European  prince,  mixes  with  his  subjects, 
interferes  in  all  their  pursuits,  and  taxes  them  most  un- 
mercifully. He  dresses  like  a  European,  and  all  the  young 
men  have  adopted  the  fashion.  You  see  young  Turks  in 
uniforms  which  would  not  disgrace  one  of  our  crack  cavalry 
regiments,  and  lounging  with  all  the  bitterness  of  Koyal 
illegitimates.  It  is  on  the  rising  generation  that  the  Sultan 
depends,  and,  if  one  may  form  an  opinion,  not  in  vain.  After 
all  his  defeats,  he  has  now  60,000  regular  infantry  excellently 
appointed  and  well  disciplined.  They  are  certainly  not  to  be 
compared  to  French  or  English  line,  but  they  would  as 
certainly  beat  the  Spanish  and  the  Dutch,  and  many  think, 
with  fair  play,  the  Russian.  Fair  play  their  monarch  certainly 
had  not  during  the  last  campaign ;  the  secret  history  would 
not  now  interest,  but  it  was  by  other  means  than  military 
prowess  that  the  Muscovites  advanced  so  successfully.  The 
Sultan  had  to  struggle  against  an  unprecedented  conspiracy 
the  whole  time,  and  the  morning  that  Adrianople  was 
treacherously  delivered  up,  the  streets  of  Stamboul  were  filled 
with  dead  bodies  of  detected  traitors.2 


He  lingered  there  for  more  than  a  month,  lounging 
daily  in  the  shop  of  '  Mustapha  the  Imperial  perfumer,' 
attending  'masquerade  balls  and  diplomatic  dinners,' 
and  leading  a  life  of  rapturous,  but  far  from  inattentive, 
indolence.  The  Ambassador,  a  brother  of  Lord  Aber- 
deen's, received  him  'with  a  kindness  which  he  should 
always  remember  with  gratitude ' ;  though  in  a  game 
of  forfeits  one  day  his  Excellency  showed  so  little  respect 
for  the  Oriental  gravity  which  his  guest  was  anxious  to 
cultivate  as  to  make  him  '  tumble  over  head  and  heels. 
Can  you  conceive  anything  more  dreadful  ? '  '  My  health 
improved,  but  my  desire  of  wandering  increased.  I 
began  to  think  that  I  should  now  never  be  able  to  settle 
in  life.  The  desire  of  fame  did  not  revive.  I  felt  no 
intellectual  energy ;  I  required  nothing  more  than  to 
be  amused.'  This  was  Contarini's  mood  during  his 
stay  in  the  *  Capital  of  the  East,'  and  Disraeli's  seems  to 
have  been  not  very  different.  '  All,'  as  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 

1  Mahnmd  II.,  destroyer  of  the  Janissaries. 

2  Letters,  pp.  63-65. 


170  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

Austen,  '  was  like  life  in  a  pantomime  or  Eastern  tale  of 
enchantment.' 


To  Edward  Lytton  Bulwer. 

CONSTANTINOPLE, 

Dec.  27,  1830. 

I  confess  to  you  that  my  Turkish  prejudices  are  very  much 
confirmed  by  my  residence  in  Turkey.  The  life  of  this  people 
greatly  accords  with  my  taste,  which  is  naturally  somewhat 
indolent  and  melancholy.  And  I  do  not  think  it  would 
disgust  you.  To  repose  on  voluptuous  ottomans  and  smoke 
superb  pipes,  daily  to  indulge  in  the  luxuries  of  a  bath  which 
requires  half  a  dozen  attendants  for  its  perfection ;  to  court 
the  air  in  a  carved  caique,  by  shores  which  are  a  perpetual 
scene ;  and  to  find  no  exertion  greater  than  a  canter  on  a 
barb ;  this  is,  I  think,  a  far  more  sensible  life  than  all  the 
bustle  of  clubs,  all  the  boring  of  drawing-rooms,  and  all  the 
coarse  vulgarity  of  our  political  controversies.  And  all  this, 
I  assure  you,  is,  without  any  coloring  or  exaggeration,  the 
life  which  may  be  here  commanded.  A  life  accompanied 
by  a  thousand  sources  of  calm  enjoyment,  and  a  thousand 
modes  of  mellowed  pleasure,  which  it  would  weary  you  to 
relate,  and  which  I  leave  to  your  own  lively  imagination. 

.  .  .  I  mend  slowly,  but  mend.  The  seasons  have 
greatly  favoured  me.  Continual  heat.  And  even  here,  where 
the  winter  is  proverbially  cold,  there  is  a  summer  sky.1 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  Meredith  had  parted 
from  '  his  amusing  but  idle '  companions  and  gone  over- 
land to  Smyrna,  and  a  fortnight  later  Disraeli  and  Clay 
sailed  in  the  '  Susan '  for  the  same  place.  There  they  found 
their  companion  intent  on  an  expedition  to  '  the  unseen 
relics  of  some  unheard-of  cock-and-a-bull  city,'  and  as 
Disraeli  was  bent  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
he  and  Clay  continued  their  voyage  to  the  south. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

We  found  ourselves  again  in  an  archipelago  —  the  Sporades 
—  and  tried  to  make  Rhodes ;  but  a  contrary  wind,  although 
we  were  off  it  for  two  days,  prevented  us.  After  some  days 

1  Life  of  Bulwer,  II.,  p.  323. 


1831]  CYPRUS   AND  SYRIA  171 

we  landed  at  Cyprus,  where  we  passed  a  day  on  land  famous 
in  all  ages,  but  more  delightful  to  me  as  the  residence  of 
Fortunatus  than  as  the  rosy  realm  of  Venus  or  the  romantic 
kingdom  of  the  Crusaders.  Here  we  got  a  pilot  to  take  us 
to  Jaffa. 

One  morning,  with  a  clear  blue  sky  and  an  intense  sun,  we 
came  in  sight  of  the  whole  coast  of  Syria,  very  high  and 
mountainous,  and  the  loftiest  ranges  covered  with  snow. 
We  passed  Beyrout,  Sur,  the  ancient  Tyre,  St.  Jean  d'Acre, 
and  at  length  cast  anchor  in  the  roads  of  Jaffa.  Here  we  made 
a  curious  acquaintance  in  Damiani,  the  descendant  of  an 
old  Venetian  family,  but  himself  a  perfect  Oriental.  We  had 
read  something  about  his  grandfather  in  Volney,  and  as  he  had 
no  conception  of  books,  he  was  so  appalled  by  our  learning 
that,  had  we  not  been  Englishmen,  he  would  have  taken  us  for 
sorcerers.  We  found  him  living  among  the  most  delightful 
gardens  of  oranges,  citrons,  and  pomegranates,  the  trees  as 
high  and  the  fruit  as  thick  as  in  our  English  apple  orchards; 
himself  a  most  elegant  personage  in  flowing  robes  of  crimson 
silk,  &c.,  &c.  I  am  obliged  to  hint  rather  than  describe,  and 
must  reserve  all  detail  till  our  meeting.  He  wished  us  to 
remain  with  him  for  a  month,  and  gave  us  an  admirable 
Oriental  dinner,  which  would  have  delighted  my  father  — 
rice,  spices,  pistachio  nuts,  perfumed  rotis,  and  dazzling 
confectionery. 

From  Jaffa,  a  party  of  six,  well  mounted  and  well  armed, 
we  departed  for  Jerusalem.  Jaffa  is  a  pretty  town,  surrounded 
by  gardens,  and  situated  in  a  fruitful  plain.  After  riding 
over  this,  we  crossed  a  range  of  light  hills  and  came  into  the 
plain  of  Ramie,  vast  and  fertile.  Ramie,  the  ancient  Arima- 
thea,  is  the  model  of  our  idea  of  a  beautiful  Syrian  village, 
all  the  houses  isolated,  and  each  surrounded  by  palm  trees, 
the  meadows  and  the  exterior  of  the  village  covered  with 
olive  trees  or  divided  by  rich  plantations  of  Indian  fig. 
Here  we  sought  hospitality  in  the  Latin  convent,  an  im- 
mense establishment,  well  kept  up,  but  with  only  one 
monk.1 

The  next  day  they  continued  their  journey  towards  the 
East. 

In  the  distance  rose  a  chain  of  severe  and  savage  mountains. 
I  was  soon  wandering,  and  for  hours,  in  the  wild,  stony  ravines 
of  these  shaggy  rocks.  At  length,  after  several  passes,  I 
gained  the  ascent  of  a  high  mountain.  Upon  an  opposite 

1  Letters,  p.  58. 


172  TOUR  IN   THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

height,  descending  as  a  steep  ravine,  and  forming,  with  the 
elevation  on  which  I  rested,  a  dark  and  narrow  gorge,  I  beheld 
a  city  entirely  surrounded  by  what  I  should  have  considered 
in  Europe  an  old  feudal  wall,  with  towers  and  gates.  The 
city  was  built  upon  an  ascent,  and,  from  the  height  on  which 
I  stood,  I  could  discern  the  terrace  and  the  cupola  of  almost 
every  house,  and  the  wall  upon  the  other  side  rising  from  the 
plain ;  the  ravine  extending  only  on  the  side  to  which  I  was 
opposite.  The  city  was  in  a  bowl  of  mountains.  In  the  front 
was  a  magnificent  mosque,  with  beautiful  gardens,  and  many 
light  and  lofty  gates  of  triumph  ;  a  variety  of  domes  and 
towers  rose  in  all  directions  from  the  buildings  of  bright 
stone. 

Nothing  could  be  conceived  more  wild,  and  terrible,  and 
desolate  than  the  surrounding  scenery,  more  dark,  and 
stormy,  and  severe;  but  the  ground  was  thrown  about  in 
such  picturesque  undulations,  that  the  mind,  full  of  the  sublime, 
required  not  the  beautiful;  and  rich  and  waving  woods 
and  sparkling  cultivation  would  have  been  misplaced.  Except 
Athens,  I  had  never  witnessed  any  scene  more  essentially 
impressive.  I  will  not  place  this  spectacle  below  the  city  of 
Minerva.  Athens  and  the  Holy  City  in  their  glory  must  have 
been  the  finest  representations  of  the  beautiful  and  the 
sublime ;  the  Holy  City,  for  the  elevation  on  which  I  stood 
was  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  city  on  which  I  gazed  was 
JERUSALEM.1 

The  week  they  spent  at  Jerusalem  was  to  him  Hhe 
most  delightful  of  all  our  travels.'  He  visited  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  of  course  and  the  so-called  Tombs  of  the  Kings, 
and  was  so  fascinated  by  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  standing 
on  the  supposed  site  of  the  temple  of  his  forefathers,  that 
he  'endeavoured  to  enter  it  at  the  hazard  of  his  life.' 

I  was  detected,  and  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  turbaned 
fanatics,  and  escaped  with  difficulty;  but  I  saw  enough  to 
feel  that  minute  inspection  would  not  belie  the  general 
character  I  formed  of  it  from  the  Mount  of  Olives.  I  caught 
a  glorious  glimpse  of  splendid  courts,  and  light  airy  gates  of 
Saracenic  triumph,  nights  of  noble  steps,  long  arcades,  and 
interior  gardens,  where  silver  fountains  spouted  their  tall 
streams  amid  the  taller  cypresses.2 

1  Contarini  Fleming,  Pt.  VL  ch.  4. 

2  Alroy,  note  36. 


1831]  EGYPT  173 

Returning  to  Jaffa  the  two  companions  continued 
their  voyage  thence  and  arrived  at  Alexandria  on 
March  12,  1831.  In  'the  ancient  land  of  Priestcraft 
and  of  Pyramids,'  which  next  to  Syria  had  from  the 
beginning  'formed  the  most  prominent  object  of  his 
travels,'  Disraeli  remained  for  more  than  four  months. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

From  Alexandria,  I  crossed  the  desert  to  Rosetta.  It  was 
a  twelve  hours'  job,  and  the  whole  way  we  were  surrounded 
by  a  mirage  of  the  most  complete  kind.  I  was  perpetually 
deceived,  and  always  thought  I  was  going  to  ride  into  the 
sea.  At  Rosetta  I  first  saw  the  mighty  Nile,  with  its  banks 
richly  covered  with  palm  groves.  A  grove  of  palms  is  the 
most  elegant  thing  in  nature.  From  Rosetta  five  days  in  a 
capital  boat  which  the  Consul  had  provided  for  us,  with 
cabins  and  every  convenience  ....  took  us  to  Cairo 
through  the  famous  Delta.  This  greatly  reminded  me  of  the 
rich  plains  in  the  Pays  Bas,  quite  flat,  with  a  soil  in  every  part 
like  the  finest  garden  mould,  covered  with  production,  but 
more  productive  than  cultivated.  The  banks  of  the  river 
studded  with  villages  of  mud,  but  all  clustered  in  palm 
groves ;  beautiful  moonlight  on  the  Nile,  indescribably 
charming,  and  the  palms  by  this  light  perfectly  magical. 
Grand  Cairo,  a  large  town  of  dingy  houses  of  unbaked  brick, 
looking  terribly  dilapidated,  but  swarming  with  population 
in  rich  and  various  costume.  Visited  the  Pyramids,  and 
ascended  the  great  one,  from  the  top  of  which,  some  weeks 
afterwards,  a  man,  by  name  Maze,  whom  I  had  slightly  known 
in  Spain,  tumbled,  and  dashed  himself  to  a  mummy.  Very 
awful,  the  first  accident  of  the  kind. 

A  voyage  of  three  weeks  in  the  same  boat  to  Thebes  :  banks 
of  the  river  very  different.  The  Delta  ceases  at  Cairo,  and 
Egypt  now  only  consists  of  a  valley,  formed  by  a  river  running 
through  a  desert.  The  land  is,  however,  equally  rich,  the 
soil  being  formed  by  the  Nile ;  but  on  each  side  at  the  distance 
of  three  or  four  miles,  and  sometimes  much  nearer,  deserts. 
The  Libyan  desert  on  the  African  side  is  exactly  our  common 
idea  of  a  desert,  an  interminable  waste  of  burning  sand ;  but 
the  Arabian  and  Syrian  deserts  very  different,  in  fact,  what  we 
call  downs.  Landing  on  the  African  side,  one  might,  where 
the  desert  stretches  to  the  very  banks,  find  a  ship  of  Hadgees 
emptied  on  the  shore,  in  the  most  picturesque  groups,  some 


174  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

squatting  down  with  their  pipes,  some  boiling  coffee,  some 
performing  their  devotions.  It  was  excessively  close,  but 
had  been  a  fine  clear  day.  I  walked  nearly  a  mile  from  the 
shore ;  in  an  instant  very  dark,  with  a  heat  perfectly  stifling ; 
saw  a  column  of  sand  in  the  distance.  It  struck  me  directly 
what  it  was.  I  rushed  to  the  boat  with  full  speed,  but  barely 
quick  enough.  I  cannot  describe  the  scene  of  horror  and 
confusion.  It  was  a  simoom.  The  wind  was  the  most  awful 
sound  I  ever  heard.  Five  columns  of  sand,  taller  than  the 
Monument,  emptied  themselves  on  our  party.  Every  sail 
was  rent  to  pieces,  men  buried  in  the  earth.  Three  boats 
sailing  along  overturned ;  the  crews  swam  to  shore.  The 
wind,  the  screaming,  the  shouting,  the  driving  of  the  sand, 
were  enough  to  make  you  mad.  We  shut  all  the  windows  of 
the  cabin,  and  jumped  into  bed,  but  the  sand  came  in  like 
fire.  .  .  . 

As  for  Dendera  and  Thebes,  and  the  remains  in  every 
part  of  Upper  Egypt,  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  write. 
Italy  and  Greece  were  toys  to  them,  and  Martin's  inventions 
commonplace.  Conceive  a  feverish  and  tumultuous  dream, 
full  of  triumphal  gates,  processions  of  paintings,  interminable 
walls  of  heroic  sculpture,  granite  colossi  of  gods  and  kings, 
prodigious  obelisks,  avenues  of  sphinxes,  and  halls  of  a  thou- 
sand columns,  thirty  feet  in  girth,  and  of  a  proportionate 
height.  My  eyes  and  mind  yet  ache  with  a  grandeur  so  little 
in  unison  with  our  own  littleness.  Then  the  landscape  was 
quite  characteristic :  mountains  of  burning  sand,  vegetation 
unnaturally  vivid,  groves  of  cocoa  trees,  groups  of  croco- 
diles, and  an  ebony  population  in  a  state  of  nudity,  armed 
with  spears  of  reeds. 

Having  followed  the  course  of  the  Nile  for  seven  hundred 
miles,  to  the  very  confines  of  Nubia,  we  returned.  As  an 
antiquary  I  might  have  been  tempted  to  advance,  to  have 
witnessed  further  specimens,  but  I  was  satisfied,  and  I  wish 
not  to  lose  time  unnecessarily.  We  were  a  week  at  Thebes, 
with  the  advantage  of  the  society  of  Mr.  Wilkinson,1  an 
Englishman  of  vast  learning,  who  has  devoted  ten  years  to 
the  study  of  hieroglyphics  and  Egyptian  antiquity,  and  who 
can  read  you  the  side  of  an  obelisk,  or  the  front  of  a  pylon 
as  we  would  the  last  number  of  the  Quarterly? 

By  the  end  of  May  he  is  back  in  Cairo,  which,  in  spite 
of  its  dinginess,  he  finds  'a  luxurious  and  pleasant  place.' 

1  Afterwards  well  known  as  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson. 

2  Letters,  pp.  66-67. 


1831]  CAIRO  175 

Clay,  however,  is  ill  and  likely  to  leave  him,  and  this 
is  a  serious  trouble.  '  You  know  that  though  I  like  to  be 
at  my  ease  I  want  energy  in  those  little  affairs  of  which 
life  greatly  consists;  here  I  found  Clay  always  ready.'  As 
Clay  expressed  it  to  Meredith,  Disraeli  was  one  of  those 
people  who  'ought  never  to  travel  without  a  nurse.' 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 


CAIRO, 

May  28. 


I  am  sorry  also  to  say  that  his  faithful  servant  Giovanni, 
better  known  by  the  name  of  Tita  (he  was  Byron's  chasseur  of 
renown),  who  is  a  Belzoni  in  appearance  and  constitution, 
is  also  very  ill,  which  is  a  great  affliction.  Thus  you  see  the 
strong  men  have  all  fallen,  while  I,  who  am  an  habitual 
invalid,  am  firm  on  my  legs ;  but  the  reason  is  this,  that  I, 
being  somewhat  indolent  and  feeble,  live  a  la  Turque,  while 
Clay  and  Giovanni  are  always  in  action,  have  done  nothing 
but  shoot  and  swim  from  morning  to  night.  As  I  am  on  the 
chapter  of  domestic  troubles,  you  will  hear  with  regret  that  my 
favourite  servant,  a  Greek  of  Cyprus,  gave  me  warning  yester- 
day, his  father  being  very  ill  at  Alexandria.  He  leaves  me 
directly,  which  is  a  great  bore  at  this  moment,  especially  as 
I  am  about  to  be  alone,  and  would  annoy  me  at  all  times, 
because  he  wore  a  Mameluke  dress  of  crimson  and  gold,  with 
a  white  turban  thirty  yards  long,  and  a  sabre  glittering  like 
a  rainbow.  I  must  now  content  myself  with  an  Arab  attendant 
in  a  blue  shirt  and  slipperless.  How  are  the  mighty  fallen ! 

I  cannot  sufficiently  commend  your  letters;  they  are  in 
every  respect  charming,  very  lively  and  witty,  and  full  exactly 
of  the  stuff  I  want.  If  you  were  only  a  more  perfect  mistress 
of  the  art  of  punctuation,  you  might  rival  '  Lady  Mary '  her- 
self. Thank  my  mother  for  her  remembrance  of  me.  I  can- 
not write  to  say  I  am  quite  well,  because  the  enemy  still  holds 
out,  but  I  am  sanguine,  very,  and  at  any  rate  quite  well 
enough  to  wish  to  be  at  home I  am  quite  de- 
lighted with  my  father's  progress.  How  I  long  to  be  with 
him,  dearest  of  men,  flashing  our  quills  together  and  opening 
their  minds,  'standing  together  in  our  chivalry,'  which  we 
will  do,  now  that  I  have  got  the  use  of  my  brain  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life.  Tell  Ralph  to  write  as  often  and  as  much  as 
he  likes,  and  that  I  have  become  a  most  accomplished  smoker, 
carrying  that  luxurious  art  to  a  pitch  of  refinement  of  which 


176  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

he  has  no  idea.  My  pipe  is  cooled  in  wet  silken  bag,  my 
coffee  is  boiled  with  spices,  and  I  finish  my  last  chibouque 
with  a  sherbet  of  pomegranate.  Oh  the  delicious  fruits  that 
we  have  here,  and  in  Syria !  Orange  gardens  miles  in  extent, 
citrons,  limes,  pomegranates ;  but  the  most  delicious  thing  in 
the  world  is  a  banana,  which  is  richer  than  a  pineapple. 

I  don't  care  a  jot  about  The  Young  Duke.  I  never  staked 
any  fame  on  it.  It  may  take  its  chance.  I  meant  the  hero 
to  be  a  model  for  our  youth ;  but  after  two  years'  confinement 
in  these  revolutionary  times,  I  fear  he  will  prove  old-fashioned. 
Goethe1  and  Vivian  Grey  of  course  gratifying.  I  hear  the 
Patriarch  is  dead :  perhaps  a  confusion  with  his  son.  I  saw 
it  in  Galignani,  an  excellent  publication  which  keeps  me 
au  jour.  .  .  .  The  death  of  Max2  has  cut  me  to  the 
heart.3 

When  Disraeli  wrote  this  letter  his  thoughts,  as  can  be 
seen,  were  all  directed  homeward,  and  in  fact  he  was  '  only 
waiting  for  a  ship  to  convey  him  to  Malta ' ;  but  '  the  more 
he  saw  of  Oriental  life  the  more  he  liked  it,'  and  he 
lingered  on  that  he  might  return  with  Meredith,  who  was 
now  in  Upper  Egypt.  His  first  glimpse  of  the  redoubtable 
Mehemet  Ali  was  curious. 

Wandering  in  the  gardens  of  his  palace  at  Shubra,  I 
suddenly  came  upon  him  one  afternoon,  surrounded  by  his 
Court,  a  very  brilliant  circle,  in  most  gorgeous  dresses,  par- 
ticularly the  black  eunuchs  in  scarlet  and  gold,  and  who  ride 
white  horses.  I  was  about  to  retire,  but  one  of  his  principal 
attendants  took  me  by  the  arm  and  led  me  to  the  circle. 
The  Pasha  is  exceedingly  fond  of  the  English.  His  Highness 
was  playing  chess  with  his  fool,  and  I  witnessed  a  very  curi- 
ous scene.  I  stayed  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  had  I 
waited  till  his  game  was  finished,  I  am  informed  that  he 

1  A  friend  of  the  Austens  and  Disraelis  had  just  returned  from  Weimar 
and  reported  that  '  the  old  man  himself,  and  Madame  Goethe,  his  son's 
wife,  were  among  the  warmest  admirers  of    Vivian  Grey ;  they  had 
it    on    their    own    particular    bookshelves,    and    they    spoke    enthusi- 
astically   of    it    as    being    after    Scott    the    first    of    their    English 
favourites.     They  could   find  but  one  fault,  that  the   author  had  mis- 
conceived the  German  character  in  his   youthful  Princess.'      Goethe, 
according     to     his     daughter-in-law,     'considered     that     there     was 
more    true    originality    in    the    work    than    in    any   he  had  seen  for 
years.' 

2  A  favourite  puppy  at  Bradenham. 
8  Letters,  pp.  62-64. 


1831]  DEATH   OF  MEREDITH  177 

would  have  spoken  to  me ;  but  as  I  had  no  interpreter  with 
me,  and  am  pretty  sure  that  he  was  in  the  same  state,  I 
thought  it  best  to  make  my  bow.1 

He  seems,  however,  before  he  left  to  have  had  more 
than  one  audience  of  the  Pasha,  to  have  succeeded  in 
engaging  his  attention  '  by  the  readiness  or  patience  of  his 
replies,'  and  to  have  had  the  honour  of  being  consulted 
as  to  a  scheme  his  Highness  was  considering  for  the 
introduction  of  Parliamentary  institutions  into  his 
dominions.  The  traveller  pointed  out  the  immediate 
difficulties  that  occurred  to  him,  and  the  Pasha  listened 
in  silence ;  but  at  the  next  levee  he  welcomed  his  visitor 
with  a  favouring  smile  and  beckoned  to  him  to  advance  :  — 

'God  is  great!'  said  Mehemet  Ali  to  the  traveller;  'you 
are  a  wise  man  —  Allah!  Kerim,  but  you  spit  pearls. 
Nevertheless  I  will  have  a  Parliament,  and  I  will  have  as 
many  Parliaments  as  the  King  of  England  himself.  See 
here ! '  So  saying,  his  Highness  produced  two  lists  of  names. 
.  .  .  '  See  here ! '  said  he,  '  here  are  my  parliaments ; 
but  I  have  made  up  my  mind,  to  prevent  inconvenience,  to 
elect  them  myself.'2 

Meredith  arrived  in  Cairo  at  the  end  of  June,  and  the 
two  friends  were  about  to  start  on  their  homeward 
journey  when  a  calamity  befell  which  was  a  terrible 
shock  to  Disraeli  at  the  time  and  threw  a  cloud  over 
the  whole  of  his  sister's  remaining  life.  Meredith  was 
stricken  with  smallpox,  and,  after  a  short  illness,  died  on 
the  19th  of  July. 

To  Isaac  If  Israeli. 

CAIRO, 

July  20th,  1831. 

MY  DEABEST  FATHEB, 

If  you  were  not  a  great  philosopher  as  well  as  a  good  man, 
I  do  not  think  that  I  could  summon  courage  to  communicate 
to  you  the  terrible  intelligence  which  is  now  to  be  imparted 
by  this  trembling  pen;  but  I  have  such  confidence  in  your 
wisdom  as  well  as  in  your  virtue,  that  it  is  your  assistance 

1  Ibid.,  p.  67. 

2  Vindication  of  the  English  Constitution,  p.  103. 
VOL.  i  —  N 


178  TOUR  IN  THE   EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

to  which  I  look  in  the  saddest  office  that  has  ever  yet  devolved 
upon  nie,  because  I  know  that  the  joint  influence  of  your 
experience  and  your  benevolent  soul  will  at  the  same  time 
assist  the  sufferers  in  forming  a  juster  estimate  of  the  loss 
than  can  perhaps  occur  in  the  first  pangs  of  affliction,  and 
offer  the  only  solace  which  is  dear  to  a  refined  soul,  the 
sympathy  of  one  as  refined. 

You  have  already  guessed  the  fatal  truth  —  our  William 
is  lost  to  us.  I  feel  that  I  must  repeat  it.  It  is  too  terrible 
to  believe.  ...  I  would  willingly  have  given  my  life 

for  his Oh !  my  father,  why  do  we  live  ?     The 

anguish  of  my  soul  is  great.  Our  innocent  lamb,  our  angel 
is  stricken.  Save  her,  save  her.  I  will  come  home  directly. 
.  .  .  I  wish  to  live  only  for  my  sister.  I  think  of  her 
all  day  and  all  night.  It  is  some  satisfaction  that  I  was 
with  our  friend  to  the  last.  Oh !  my  father,  I  trust  a  great 
deal  to  you  and  my  dear  mother.  I  do  not  know  what  to 
write,  what  to  think.  I  have  not  said  anything  that  I  wanted, 
yet  I  have  said  too  much.  God  bless  you,  my  dear  father. 
Embrace  them  all.  I  wish  that  I  could  mingle  my  tears  with 
yours. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

MY  OWN  SA, 

Ere  you  open  this  page,  our  beloved  father  will  have 
imparted  to  you  with  all  the  tenderness  of  parental  love 
the  terrible  intelligence  which  I  have  scarcely  found  energy 
enough  to  communicate  to  him.  It  is  indeed  true.  Yes  !  our 
friend  of  many  years,  our  hope  and  joy  and  consolation,  is 
lost  to  us  for  ever.  He  has  yielded  to  his  Creator  without  a 
bodily  or  mental  pang  that  pure,  and  honorable,  and  upright 
soul  which  we  all  so  honored  and  so  esteemed.  He  has 
suddenly  closed  a  life  unsullied  by  a  crime,  scarcely  by  a 
weakness.  Oh !  my  sister,  in  this  hour  of  overwhelming 
affliction  my  thoughts  are  only  for  you.  Alas !  my  beloved,  if 
you  are  lost  to  me  where,  where  am  I  to  fly  for  refuge  ?  I  have 
no  wife,  I  have  no  betrothed;  nor  since  I  have  been  better 
acquainted  with  my  own  mind  and  temper  have  I  sought 
them.  Live  then,  my  heart's  treasure  for  one  who  has  ever 
loved  you  with  a  surpassing  love,  and  who  would  cheerfully 
have  yielded  his  own  existence  to  have  saved  you  the  bitterness 
of  this  letter.  Yes,  my  beloved,  be  my  genius,  my  solace, 
my  companion,  my  joy.  We  will  never  part,  and  if  I  cannot 
be  to  you  all  our  lost  friend  [was  ?],  at  least  we  will  feel  that 
life  can  never  be  a  blank  while  gilded  by  the  perfect  love  of  a 
sister  and  a  brother. 


1831]  SARAH   DISRAELI  179 

Disraeli  had  thought  of  returning  through  Italy,  that 
he  might  see  Naples  and  Rome,  but  he  now  abandoned 
the  project,  and  took  what  was  then  the  direct  route 
by  Gibraltar  ;  though  owing  to  a  long  detention  in 
quarantine  at  Malta  it  was  late  in  October  before  he 
reached  England.  At  Bradenham  he  found  a  sorrowing 
household,  and  the  beloved  sister  on  whom  the  blow 
had  directly  fallen  almost  crushed  by  its  force.  '  I  cannot 
trust  myself  to  write  of  her,'  he  says  in  a  letter  to 
Meredith's  sister  on  his  arrival,  '  but  her  sweet  and 
virtuous  soul  struggles  under  this  overwhelming  affliction.' 
Sarah  Disraeli  was  a  woman,  as  her  letters  show  her  and 
as  she  is  described  by  her  friends,  of  intensely  loving  and 
sympathetic  nature,  of  real  nobility  of  character,  and  of 
no  small  intellectual  capacity.  Henceforth  her  life  was 
dedicated  to  others ;  above  all  to  her  father  and  her 
family,  for  whom  the  desolation  that  had  come  upon 
her  seemed  to  have  quickened  her  affection.  For  her 
eldest  brother  especially  this  affection  now  became  a 
passion.  From  the  first  she  had  a  romantic  faith  in  his 
coining  greatness,  which  never  wavered  even  in  the  darkest 
hour,  and  her  chief  solace  in  her  loneliness  was  to  watch 
the  progress  of  his  fame.  It  is  not  given  to  a  man  in 
the  stress  and  turmoil  of  an  active  life  to  pay  back  in 
kind  the  self-forgetting  devotion  of  a  lonely  woman's 
heart ;  but  Disraeli's  affection  for  his  sister  remained  of 
rare  depth  and  tenderness.  '  I  believe,'  wrote  an  intimate 
friend,1  'he  never  entirely  got  over  his  deep  sense  of 
suffering  at  the  crushing  disappointment  of  her  early 
hopes,  and,  amid  the  many  stirring  incidents  of  his 
eventful  life,  the  death-bed  scene  at  Cairo  was  not  seldom 
recalled.  He  rarely  spoke  either  of  his  sister  or  of 
Meredith,  but  that  was  his  habit  where  his  feelings 
were  deeply  concerned.  Once  I  remember  his  describing 
Meredith  to  me  as  a  man  of  great  intellectual  powers 
who  would  certainly  have  distinguished  himself  if  he 
had  lived  ;  and  on  the  first  occasion  of  his  becoming 

1  The  late  Sir  Philip  Rose. 


180  TOUR  IN  THE  EAST  [CHAP,  ix 

Prime  Minister  I  remember  saying  to  him,  "  If  only  your 
sister  had  been  alive  now  to  witness  your  triumph  what 
happiness  it  would  have  given  her  " ;  and  he  replied,  "  Ah, 
poor  Sa,  poor  Sa !  we've  lost  our  audience,  we've  lost  our 
audience,"  and  at  once  turned  the  subject  as  too  painful 
to  dwell  upon.' 


CHAPTER   X 

CONTARINI  FLEMING  AND  ALROY 
1832-1833 

Disraeli's  pen  had  not  been  idle  during  the  last  few 
months  of  his  residence  in  the  East  or  during  the  voyage 
home.  Contarini  Fleming  was  not  published  till  May, 
1832,  and  Alroy  not  till  March,  1833  ;  but  when  he  reached 
Bradenham  in  November  both  works,  if  not  complete, 
must  have  been  far  on  the  road  towards  completion.  In 
the  Preface  to  the  1845  edition  of  Contarini  he  speaks  of 
the  book  as  having  been  composed  *  in  a  beautiful  and 
distant  land ' ;  in  an  unpublished  letter  of  later  date  he 
couples  Alroy  with  Contarini  as  having  been  written  while 
he  was  abroad  ;  and  three  months  after  his  return,  when 
Contarini  is  already  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher,  he  tells 
Austen  that  he  has  another  work  finished  in  his  portfolio, 
and  this  can  only  have  been  Alroy.  Whatever  the 
external  facts,  there  is  internally,  at  all  events,  a  close 
association  between  the  two  novels.  They  are  spiritually 
the  product  of  the  same  period  in  Disraeli's  life,  and  that 
the  period  of  the  journey  in  the  East,  and  they  are 
artistically  the  most  sincere  and  disinterested  of  his 
early  works,  direct  emanations  from  his  own  personality 
and  inner  experience.  *  My  works,'  he  writes  in  the 
diary  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made,  '  are  the 
embodification  of  my  feelings.  In  Vivian  Q-rey  I  have 
portrayed  my  active  and  real  ambition  :  in  Alroy  my 

181 


182  CONTARINI  FLEMING  AND  ALROY       [CHAP,  x 

ideal  ambition  :  The  Psychological  Romance  is  a  develop- 
ment of  my  poetic  character.  This  trilogy  is  the  secret 
history  of  my  feelings  —  I  shall  write  no  more  about 
myself.' 

These  two  novels  are  therefore,  in  common  with  Vivian 
Grrey,  of  first-rate  biographic  significance,  and  Contarini 
especially  is  in  some  respects  the  most  self-revealing  of 
all  Disraeli's  works. 

I  am  desirous  of  writing  a  book  which  shall  be  all  truth  :  a 
work  of  which  the  passion,  the  thought,  the  action,  and  even 
the  style,  should  spring  from  my  own  experience  of  feeling, 
from  the  meditations  of  my  own  intellect,  from  my  own  obser- 
vation of  incident,  from  my  own  study  of  the  genius  of  expres- 
sion. 

So  the  self -discovering  hero  tells  us  in  the  first  chapter 
of  the  novel,  and  the  author  of  course  intended  that  we 
should  apply  the  words  to  himself.  Contarini's  father  is 
a  Saxon  nobleman  in  the  service  of  a  northern  court ;  his 
mother  was  the  daughter  of  a  great  Venetian  house  who 
had  died  in  giving  birth  to  him  :  he  has  thus,  like  Dis- 
raeli himself,  though  surrounded  by  the  snows  and  forests 
of  the  North,  the  nervous  temperament  and  glowing 
imagination  of  the  South.  We  have  seen  something 
already  of  his  sensitive  and  brooding  childhood  and  the 
perpetual  oscillation  of  his  aims  between  the  fields  of  art 
and  of  action  :  on  the  one  hand  '  his  imaginary  deeds  of 
conquest,  his  heroic  aspirations,  his  long  dazzling  dreams 
of  fanciful  adventure  ' ;  on  the  other,  '  the  first  indication 
of  his  predisposition  (as  a  poet),  the  growing  consciousness 
of  his  powers,  his  reveries,  his  loneliness,  his  doubts,  his 
moody  misery,  his  ignorance  of  his  art,  his  failures,  his 
despair.'  '  To  feel  the  strong  necessity  of  fame,  and  to 
be  conscious  that  without  intellectual  excellence  life  must 
be  insupportable,  to  feel  all  this  with  no  simultaneous 
faith  in  your  own  power,  these  are  moments  of  despond- 
ency for  which  no  immortality  can  compensate.'  While 


1832]  CONTARINI'S  BOYHOOD  183 

in  some  such  mood  as  this  Contarini  falls  in  with  one 
Winter,  an  artist,  a  man  of  philosophic  mind  and  wide 
experience,  who,  in  his  serene  wisdom  and  penetrating 
gaze  into  the  hidden  springs  of  character  and  the  deeper 
realities  of  life,  is  of  the  same  family  as  Horace  Grey  and 
Beckendorff  in  the  earliest  of  the  novels,  or  as  Sidonia 
in  the  great  trilogy  of  Disraeli's  full  maturity.  Winter 
recognises  the  poetic  gift  of  the  child,  teaches  him  that 
before  he  can  hope  to  be  a  great  artist  he  must  study 
his  art,  and  leaves  him  with  some  talismanic  rules 
which  he  had  'copied  off  an  obelisk  amid  the  ruins  of 
Thebes':  — 


Be  patient :  cherish  hope.  Bead  more :  ponder  less. 
Nature  is  more  powerful  than  education :  time  will  develops 
everything. 

In  accordance  with  this  oracular  advice  the  boy  deter- 
mines to  be  patient  and  that  a  book  shall  be  ever  in  his 
hand;  but  the  first  he  reads,  a  History  of  Venice,  reawakens 
the  love  of  action  that  slumbers  in  him  and  gives  another 
turn  to  his  aspirations.  His  '  consular  blood  demands  a 
sword,'  he  resolves  to  be  a  Doge,  and,  as  a  first  step,  to 
run  away  from  school  and  set  out  for  Venice;  and  so  end 
his  schooldays. 

After  many  other  youthful  adventures  and  many 
shiftings  of  ambition  Contarini  at  length  becomes  private 
secretary  to  his  father,  and  developing  into  a  callous  and 
unscrupulous  worldling  so  much  distinguishes  himself  in 
his  new  career  that  in  a  few  years  he  is  made  an  Under- 
secretary of  State.  In  a  conference  with  the  ambassadors 
of  the  great  powers,  he,  by  a  sudden  stroke  of  audacit}^ 
wins  a  diplomatic  success  which  seems  to  open  a  path  to 
the  attainment  of  his  highest  ambitions.  The  passage  in 
which  he  describes  his  feelings  at  this  moment  of  triumph 
is  worth  quoting  at  length  as  a  specimen  of  Disraeli's 
style  at  its  best. 


184  CONTARINI   FLEMING   AND   ALROY        [CHAP,  x 

The  conference  broke  up,  my  father  retired  with  the  King, 
and  desired  me  to  wait  for  him  in  the  hall.  I  was  alone. 
I  was  excited.  I  felt  the  triumph  of  success.  I  felt  that  I 
had  done  a  great  action.  I  felt  all  my  energies.  I  walked 
up  and  down  the  hall  in  a  frenzy  of  ambition,  and  I  thirsted 
for  action.  There  seemed  to  be  no  achievement  of  which 
I  was  not  capable,  and  of  which  I  was  not  ambitious.  In 
imagination  I  shook  thrones  and  founded  empires.  I  felt 
myself  a  being  born  to  breathe  in  an  atmosphere  of  revolution. 

My  father  came  not.  Time  wore  away,  and  the  day  died. 
It  was  one  of  those  stern,  sublime  sunsets,  which  is  almost 
the  only  appearance  in  the  north  in  which  nature  enchanted 
me.  I  stood  at  the  window,  gazing  on  the  burnished  masses 
that  for  a  moment  were  suspended  in  their  fleeting  and 
capricious  beauty  on  the  far  horizon.  I  turned  aside  and 
looked  at  the  rich  trees  suffused  with  the  crimson  light,  and 
ever  and  anon  irradiated  by  the  dying  shoots  of  a  golden 
ray.  The  deer  were  stealing  home  to  their  bowers,  and  I 
watched  them  till  their  glancing  forms  gradually  lost  their 
lustre  in  the  declining  twilight.  The  glory  had  now  departed, 
and  all  grew  dim.  A  solitary  star  alone  was  shining  in  the 
grey  sky,  a  bright  and  solitary  star. 

And  as  I  gazed  upon  the  sunset,  and  the  star,  and  the  dim 
beauties  of  the  coming  eve,  my  mind  grew  calm,  and  all  the 
bravery  of  my  late  reverie  passed  away.  And  I  felt  indeed 
a  disgust  for  all  the  worldliness  on  which  I  had  been  late 
pondering.  And  there  arose  in  my  mind  a  desire  to  create 
things  beautiful  as  that  golden  sun  and  that  glittering  star. 

I  heard  my  name.  The  hall  was  now  darkened.  In  the 
distance  stood  my  father.  I  joined  him.  He  placed  his 
arm  affectionately  in  mine,  and  said  to  me,  'My  son,  you 
will  be  Prime  Minister  of  .  .  .  .;  perhaps  something 
greater.' l 

A  short  time  before,  a  fresh  encounter  with  a  lady 
who  had  been  the  object  of  a  boyish  passion  had  re- 
awakened the  better  feelings  of  the  young  egoist  and 
made  him  recoil  in  disgust  from  the  thought  of  his  present 
life.  The  latent  poetry  of  his  being  revived ;  he  took 
up  his  pen  and,  in  the  sudden  rush  of  inspiration,  pro- 
duced in  seven  days  a  novel  which  was  published 
anonymously  under  the  title  of  Manstein.  The  narrative 

i  Pt.  II.  ch.  13. 


1832]  CONTARINI'S  NOVEL  185 

now  runs  closely  parallel  to  Disraeli's  own  experience  in 
the  case  of  Vivian  G-rey.  Manstein  is  a  rapid  sketch  of 
the  development  of  the  poetic  character,  the  hero  '  a 
youth  whose  mind  is  ever  combating  with  his  situation.' 
It  never  strikes  Contarini  that  he  is  delineating  his  own 
character,  and  this  may  have  been  true  of  Disraeli  when 
he  wrote  Vivian  G-rey.  In  the  following  passage  we  may 
assume  that  we  have  an  exact  account  of  the  feelings 
with  which  Disraeli  regarded  his  earliest  novel  five  years 
after  its  publication :  — 

For  the  work  itself,  it  was  altogether  a  most  crude  perform- 
ance, teeming  with  innumerable  faults.  It  was  entirely 
deficient  in  art.  The  principal  character,  although  forcibly 
conceived,  for  it  was  founded  on  truth,  was  not  sufficiently 
developed.  Of  course,  the  others  were  much  less  so.  The 
incidents  were  unnatural,  the  serious  characters  exaggerations, 
the  comic  oues  caricatures  ;  the  wit  was  too  often  flippant, 
the  philosophy  too  often  forced;  yet  the  vigour  was  remark- 
able, the  licence  of  an  uncurbed  imagination  not  without 
charms,  and,  on  the  whole,  there  breathed  a  freshness  which 
is  rarely  found,  and  which,  perhaps,  with  all  my  art  aud 
knowledge,  I  may  never  again  afford :  and,  indeed,  when  I 
recall  the  heat  with  which  this  little  work  was  written,  I  am 
convinced  that,  with  all  its  errors,  the  spark  of  true  creation 
animated  its  fiery  page.1 

Manstein  proves  a  decisive  influence  in  Contarini's 
life.  In  depicting  the  scenes  of  society  amid  which  his 
hero  was  forced  to  move,  the  bitterness  of  the  author's 
heart  finds  vent  in  slashing  satire  and  malignant 
personality.  The  anonymity  which  shelters  him  is  not 
long  preserved,  and  there  is  at  once  a  tremendous  outcry. 
Everybody  takes  a  delight  in  detecting  the  originals  of 
his  portraits. 

Various  keys  were  handed  about,  all  different;  and  not 
content  with  recognizing  the  very  few  decided  sketches  from 
life  which  there  really  were,  and  which  were  sufficiently 
obviousL  and  not  very  malignant,  they  mischievously  insisted 

i  Pt.  II.  ch.  12. 


186  CONTARINI   FLEMING  AND   ALROY        [CHAP,  x 

that  not  a  human  shadow  glided  over  my  pages  which  might 
not  be  traced  to  its  substance. 

In  the  storm  that  now  bursts  Contarini's  chances  of 
a  political  career  are  wrecked ;  and  even  if  it  were  other- 
wise his  desire  for  worldly  success  is  gone.  Analysing 
his  own  character,  he  recognises  that  he  has  been  '  selfish 
and  affected,' '  entirely  ignorant  of  the  principles  of  genuine 
morality,'  and  with  '  a  total  want  of  nature  in  everything 
connected  with  him.'  He  determines  to  re-educate  him- 
self. Considering  himself  a  poet,  he  resolves  to  pursue 
a  course  which  shall  develop  and  perfect  his  poetic 
power ;  and,  as  the  first  step  must  be  to  gain  an  acquaint- 
ance with  men  and  nature  in  all  their  varieties  and  con- 
ditions, he  bids  farewell  to  Scandinavia  and  sets  out  upon 
his  travels. 

In  all  this  there  is  much  that  is  of  the  first  importance 
as  a  picture  of  Disraeli's  childhood  and  youth :  though 
whether  it  equally  well  depicts  the  formation  of  the 
poetic  character  is  quite  another  matter.  Some  of  the 
ingredients  that  go  to  the  making  of  the  true  poet  are 
to  be  found  in  Contarini  as  they  are  to  be  found  in 
Disraeli  himself.  The  high  imagination,  the  brooding 
temperament,  the  wild  ecstasy  —  even  in  some  degree 
the  creative  faculty  and  the  self-devotion  of  the  artist 
are  there ;  and  yet  there  is  an  indefinable  something 
which  we  look  for  in  vain.  There  are  elements,  moreover, 
in  Contarini's  character  —  a  fierce  and  ravening  ambition, 
a  consuming  thirst  for  power  and  greatness  —  which 
assuredly  were  present  in  the  young  Disraeli  also,  and 
have  very  little  to  do  with  the  true  poetic  temperament. 
In  those  perpetual  oscillations  of  Contarini's  will  between 
the  active  and  literary  careers  it  is  the  author's  artistic 
purpose  to  have  us  believe  that  poetry  is  the  real  vocation, 
and  that  the  bias  for  action  is  factitious.  But  the  im- 
pression really  left  on  us  is  exactly  the  opposite.  We  see 
Contarini  in  action ;  we  are  only  told  that  he  is  a  poet ; 


1832]  POET   OR  MAN   OF   ACTION  187 

and  we  feel  that  Baron  Fleming  has  truly  divined  the 
sentiments  both  of  his  son  and  of  the  author  when  he 
thus  gives  expression  to  his  own :  — 

What  were  all  those  great  poets  of  whom  we  now  talk  so 
much,  what  were  they  in  their  lifetime  ?  The  most  miserable 
of  their  species.  ...  A  man  of  great  energies  aspires 
that  they  should  be  felt  in  his  lifetime,  that  his  existence 
should  be  rendered  more  intensely  vital  by  the  constant 
consciousness  of  his  multiplied  and  multiplying  power.  Is 
posthumous  fame  a  substitute  for  all  this  ?  .  .  .  Would 
you  rather  have  been  Homer  or  Julius  Caesar,  Shakespeare 
or  Napoleon  ?  No  one  doubts.  .  .  .  We  are  active  be- 
ings, and  our  sympathy  above  all  other  sympathies  is  with 
great  action.  .  .  .  Mix  in  society  [is  his  final  advice], 
and  I  will  answer  that  you  lose  your  poetic  feeling;  for 
in  you  as  in  the  great  majority,  it  is  not  a  creative  faculty 
originating  in  a  peculiar  organization,  but  simply  the  conse- 
quence of  a  nervous  susceptibility  that  is  common  to  all.1 

From  the  moment  that  Contarini  sets  out  upon  his 
travels  the  value  of  the  novel  as  a  biographic  document 
rapidly  diminishes.  The  fact  is,  just  as  in  Vivian  Grrey, 
after  the  first  volume,  the  creative  impulse  is  now  spent ; 
the  author  has  given  us  a  picture  of  his  inward  experi- 
ence as  far  as  it  has  been  carried,  and  he  has  to  resort  to 
book  making  to  bring  his  story  to  an  end.  It  is  better 
book  making  than  what  we  get  in  the  second  volume  of 
Vivian  Grrey,  but  little  more  can  be  said  in  its  praise.  Con- 
tarini first  of  all  finds  his  way  to  Venice  and  there  meets 
and  marries  his  predestined  bride,  the  last  of  his  mother's 
house.  Apart  from  the  descriptions,  this  part  of  the  tale 
is  merely  conventional  romance,  with  even  less  relation 
than  has  generally  been  supposed  to  Disraeli's  own  experi- 
ence. After  a  year  of  intense  happiness  in  Crete  the  bride 
dies  in  childbirth,  and  in  a  highly  melodramatic  scene  the 
hero,  maddened  by  his  anguish,  flings  himself  from  a  peak 
of  Mount  Ida.  For  anything  that  he  ever  seems  to  accom- 
plish he  might  just  as  well  succeed  in  his  purpose  of  self- 

i  Pt.  II.  ch.  9. 


188  CONTARINI  FLEMING  AND  ALROY       [CHAP,  x 

destruction ;  but  he  is  picked  up  alive  and,  after  a  time, 
begins  a  course  of  wandering  which  is  made  an  excuse  for 
the  introduction  of  the  travel  scenes  in  Disraeli's  letters 
from  the  East.  Falling  in  again  with  the  philosophic 
Winter,  Contarini  receives  some  excellent  advice. 

I  tell  you  what,  my  friend,  the  period  has  arrived  in  your 
life  when  you  must  renounce  meditation.  Action  is  now 
your  part.  Meditation  is  culture.  It  is  well  to  think  until 
a  man  has  discovered  his  genius,  and  developed  his  faculties, 
but  then  let  him  put  his  intelligence  in  motion.  Act,  act, 
act ;  act  without  ceasing,  and  you  will  no  longer  talk  of  the 
vanity  of  life. 

Disraeli  himself  profited  by  this  advice,  but  Contarini 
neglects  it.  He  becomes  a  mere  dilettante,  and  at  the 
end,  having  inherited  his  father's  wealth,  is  found  devoting 
himself  to  the  planning  of  an  earthly  paradise  at  Naples, 
which  is  to  rival  Hadrian's  Villa.  '  Here  let  me  pass  my 
life  in  the  study  and  the  creation  of  the  beautiful:  such 
is  my  desire ;  but,'  as  the  author  with  prescient  scepti- 
cism makes  him  add,  '  whether  it  will  be  my  career  is,  I 
feel,  doubtful.' 

My  interest  in  the  happiness  of  my  race  is  too  keen  to 
permit  me  for  a  moment  to  be  blind  to  the  storms  that  lour 
on  the  horizon  of  society.  Perchance,  also,  the  political  re- 
generation of  the  country  to  which  I  am  devoted  may  not  be 
distant,  and  in  that  great  work  I  am  resolved  to  participate. 
Bitter  jest,  that  the  most  civilized  portion  of  the  globe  should 
be  considered  incapable  of  self-government ! 

This  enthusiasm  for  the  Italian  cause  proved  short- 
lived in  the  author,  whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with 
the  hero ;  but  in  all  that  is  really  essential  the  true  com- 
pletion of  Contarini,  as  of  Vivian  G-rey  before  it,  and  of 
Coningsby  and  Tancred  later,  is  Disraeli's  own  career. 

On  nearly  every  page  of  Contarini  the  reader  who  knows 
Disraeli  will  find  him  lifting  the  veil  that  hides  his  own 
personality.  Sometimes  in  those  smaller  touches  that 


1832]  PERSONAL   TOUCHES  189 

reveal  his  tastes  and  habits  :  his  unaffected  joys  in  woods 
and  trees  — '  I  began  to  long  to  be  a  woodman,  to  pass  a 
quiet,  and  contemplative,  and  virtuous  life,  amid  the  deep 
silence  and  beautiful  scenery  of  forests '  ;  his  love  of 
women's  society  — '  For  a  long  time,  I  could  not  detect 
the  reason  why  I  was  so  charmed  with  Egyptian  life. 
At  last  I  recollected  that  I  had  recurred,  after  a  long 
estrangement,  to  the  cheerful  influence  of  women  ' ;  the 
incidents  of  composition — 'After  writing  a  book  my  mind 
always  makes  a  great  spring.'  'I  can  write  only  in  the 
morning.  It  is  then  I  execute  with  facility  all  that  I 
have  planned  the  preceding  eve.'  '  It  is  my  habit  to 
contrive  in  my  head  the  complete  work  before  I  have 
recourse  to  the  pen  which  is  to  execute  it.  I  do  not  think 
that  meditation  can  be  too  long,  or  execution  too  rapid.' 
Or  in  the  Polonius-like  advice  of  Baron  Fleming  to  his  son, 

Kead  French  authors.  Eead  Rochefoucauld.  The  French 
writers  are  the  finest  in  the  world,  for  they  clear  our  heads 
of  all  ridiculous  ideas.  .  .  .  Do  not  talk  too  much  at 
present ;  do  not  try  to  talk.  But  whenever  you  speak, 
speak  with  self-possession.  .  .  .  Never  argue.  In  soci- 
ety nothing  must  be  discussed ;  give  only  results.  .  .  . 
Talk  to  women,  talk  to  women  as  much  as  you  can.  This 
is  the  best  school.  This  is  the  way  to  gain  fluency,  because 
you  need  not  care  what  you  say,  and  had  better  not  be 
sensible.  They,  too,  will  rally  you  on  many  points,  and  as 
they  are  women  you  will  not  be  offended.  Nothing  is  of  so 
much  importance  and  of  so  much  use  to  a  young  man  enter- 
ing life  as  to  be  well  criticised  by  women.  .  .  .  Read 
no  history,  nothing  but  biography,  for  that  is  life  without 
theory. 

Or,  again,  in  half-conscious  utterances  of  his  deeper 
self :  '  There  is  that  within  me  which  may  yet  mould 
the  mind  and  fortunes  of  my  race '  ;  *  the  breath  of  man 
has  never  influenced  me  much,  for  I  depend  more  upon 
myself  than  upon  others ' ;  'I  contrasted  the  smiling 
indifference  of  his  public  appearance  with  the  agonies 
of  ambition  which  it  was  my  doom  alone  to  witness.' 


190  CONTARINI   FLEMING   AND   ALROY         [CHAP,  x 

Here,  too,  are  many  characteristic  formulae  from  the 
Disraelian  philosophy  of  life  — '  There  is  little  mystery, 
there  is  much  ignorance  '  ;  and  with  no  less  conviction, 
'Everything  is  mysterious';  'at  the  present  day  we  too 
much  underrate  the  influence  of  individual  character '  ; 
'  patience  is  a  necessary  ingredient  of  genius ' ;  '  the 
magic  of  his  character  was  his  patience.  This  made 
him  quicker,  and  readier,  and  more  successful  than  all 
other  men.'  The  stormy  passions,  violent  impulses, 
arid  conflicting  aspirations  which  made  Contarini's  life 
so  fluctuating  and  tumultuous  were  present  in  Disraeli 
himself  ;  but  in  him  held  in  subjection  by  an  all-mastering 
will,  so  that  if  we  had  to  select  any  single  quality 
as  the  keynote  to  his  character  the  choice  might  best 
fall  on  patience — patience  and  that  unbroken  continuity 
of  mind  and  purpose  and  endeavour  which  patience 
renders  possible. 

In  accordance  with  the  promise  which  he  had  given  to 
John  Murray  before  departing  for  the  East,  Disraeli  sent 
his  manuscript  to  Albemarle  Street  as  soon  as  he  had 
it  ready.  On  the  suggestion  of  Lockhart,  whose  own 
judgment  was  perplexed  between  the  *  affectations  and 
absurdities  '  on  the  one  hand,  and  4  the  life  and  brilliancy ' 
of  the  descriptions  on  the  other,  Murray  submitted  the 
work  to  Milman,1  withholding  the  name  of  the  author, 
and  obtained  a  report  so  favourable  that  he  at  once 
accepted  it  for  publication.  '  Very  wild,  very  extrav- 
agant, very  German,  very  powerful,  very  poetical,' 
wrote  Milman.  '  It  will,  I  think,  be  much  read,  . 
much  admired,  and  much  abused.  It  is  much  more 
in  the  Macaulay  than  in  the  Croker2  line,  and  the  former 
is  evidently  in  the  ascendant.  .  .  .  The  latter  part 
.  .  .  is  a  rapid  volume  of  travels,  a  Childe  Harold  in 

1  The    well-known    historian    of    Latin  Christianity,   later  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's. 

2  Macaulay  had  just  been  '  dusting  that  varlet's  jacket '  in  a  number 
of  the  '  Blue  and  Yellow.' 


1832]  RECEPTION   OF   CONTARINI  191 

prose.'1  Disraeli  had  called  his  novel  "A  Psychological 
Romance,"  and  to  this  title  he  reverted  in  subsequent 
editions;  but  at  the  suggestion  of  Milman  and  under 
pressure  from  Murray  he  now  consented  to  change 
it  into  "  Contarini  Fleming :  A  Psychological  Auto- 
biography." The  work  appeared  in  four  volumes  and 
with  nothing  on  the  title-page  to  indicate  the  authorship, 
but  the  anonymity  was  only  thinly  veiled,  many  of  the 
reviewers  mentioning  Disraeli  by  name. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

May  26, 1832. 

I  received  your  letter  yesterday,  and  the  note  you 
enclosed  was  from  Beckford,  to  whom  I  had  sent  a  copy  of 
Contarini.  His  answer  is  short,  but  very  courteous.  It 
commences  with  four  exclamations.  '  How  wildly  original ! 
How  full  of  intense  thought !  How  awakening !  How 
delightful ! '  This  really  consoles  one  for  Mr.  Patmore's 
criticism  in  the  Court  Journal. 

May  28. 

Amid  abundance  of  praise  and  blame  of  Contarini,  one 
thing  which  we  all  expected  is  very  evident,  that  not  one  of 
the  writers  has  the  slightest  idea  of  the  nature  or  purposes 
of  the  work.  As  far  as  I  can  learn  it  has  met  with  decided 
success.  Among  others  Tom  Campbell,  who,  as  he  says, 
never  reads  any  books  but  his  own,  is  delighted  with  it; 
'I  shall  review  it  myself,'  he  exclaims,  'and  it  will  be  a 
psychological  review.'  Have  you  read  the  review  in  the 
Monthly,  where  I  am  accused  of  atheism,  because  I  retire 
into  solitude  to  write  novels? 

July  5. 

Contarini  seems  universally  liked,  but  moves  slowly.  The 
staunchest  admirer  I  have  in  London,  and  the  most  discerning 
appreciator  of  Contarini,  is  old  Madame  d'Arblay.  I  have 
a  long  letter,  which  I  will  show  you  —  capital ! 

1  Smiles,  II.,  p.  338. 

2  Letters,  pp.  76,  77. 


192  CONTARINI  FLEMING  AND   ALROY         [CHAP,  x 

In  the  course  of  the  following  year  Disraeli  wrote  in 
the  diary  from  which  we  have  already  quoted :  — 

Beckford  was  so  enraptured  when  he  read  The  Psycho- 
logical that  he  sent  Clarke,  his  confidential  agent  and  pub- 
lisher, with  whom  alone  he  corresponds,  to  call  upon  me  on 
some  pretence  or  other,  and  give  him  a  description  of  the 
person,  converse,  &c.,  of  the  author  of  what  he  was  pleased 
to  style  'that  transcendent  work.'  Clarke  called  accord- 
ingly and  wrote  back  to  Beckford  that  Disraeli  was  the 
most  conceited  person  he  had  ever  met  in  the  whole  course  of 
his  life.  B.  answered  and  rated  C.  roundly  for  his  opinion, 
telling  him  that  what  '  appeared  conceit  in  D.  was  only  the 
irrepressible  consciousness  of  superior  power.'  Some  time 
after  this,  when  Clarke  knew  me  better,  he  very  candidly 
told  me  the  whole  story  and  gave  me  a  copy  of  B.'s  letter. 

I  shall  always  consider  The  Psychological  as  the  perfection  of 
English  prose  and  a  chef  d'ceuvre.  It  has  not  paid  its  ex- 
penses. Vivian  Grey,  with  faults  which  even  youth  can 
scarcely  excuse,  in  short,  the  most  unequal,  imperfect, 
irregular  thing  that  indiscretion  ever  published,  has  sold 
thousands,  and  eight  years  after  its  publication  a  new  edition 
is  announced  to-day  —  so  much  for  public  taste. 

In  fact,  in  spite  of  the  comparative  unfriendliness  of 
the  critics  and  the  praise  it  received  from  some  of  those 
whose  praise  was  best  worth  having,  Contarini  was  a 
failure. 

I  published  Contarini  Fleming  anonymously  and  in  the 
midst  of  a  revolution.  It  was  almost  still-born,  and  having 
written  it  with  deep  thought  and  feeling,  I  was  naturally 
discouraged  from  further  effort.  Yet  the  youthful  writer 
who  may,  like  me,  be  inclined  to  despair,  may  learn  also 
from  my  example  not  to  be  precipitate  in  his  resolves. 
Gradually  Contarini  Fleming  found  sympathising  readers; 
Goethe l  and  Beckford  were  impelled  to  communicate  their 
unsolicited  opinions  of  this  work  to  its  anonymous  author, 
and  I  have  seen  a  criticism  on  it  by  Heine,  of  which  any  writer 
might  be  justly  proud.2 

The  criticism  by  Heine  is  worthy  of  citation  as  the 
judgment  of  the  only  Hebrew  contemporary  with 

1  Disraeli  must  have  been   thinking  of  the  incident  already  related 
(p.  176)  in  connexion  with  Vivian  Grey  ;  Goethe  died  in  March,  1832, 
a  month  or  more  before  Contarini  was  published. 

2  General  Preface  to  the  Novels,  1870. 


1832]  DISRAELI'S   EARLY   STYLE  193 

Disraeli  who   might   dispute    with   him  the  primacy   in 
genius : — 

Modern  English  letters  have  given  us  no  offspring  equal  to 
Contarini  Fleming.  Cast  in  our  Teutonic  mould,  it  is  never- 
theless one  of  the  most  original  works  ever  written  :  profound, 
poignant,  pathetic;  its  subject  the  most  interesting,  if  not 
the  noblest,  imaginable  —  the  development  of  a  poet;  truly 
psychological ;  passion  and  mockery ;  Gothic  richness,  the 
fantasy  of  the  Saracens,  and  yet  over  all  a  classic,  even  a 
death-like,  repose.1 

One  of  the  most  discerning  critics  2  of  Disraeli's  novels 
has  noted  the  excellence  of  his  style  in  early  life  as  com- 
pared with  what  we  find  after  the  habits  of  Parliamentary 
oratory  had  grown  upon  him ;  and  though  we  may  not 
be  able  to  adopt  his  own  too  complacent  judgment  that 
Contarini  is  'the  perfection  of  English  prose,'  his  style 
perhaps  is  here  at  its  best.  It  has  a  rhythm  and  swing 
that  carry  us  along,  and  is  full  of  sparkle  and  vitality; 
and  though  it  is  deficient  in  some  of  the  finer  graces  of 
consummate  prose,  in  the  unerring  instinct  of  the  scholar 
for  the  most  appropriate  word,  in  tenderness,  in  deli- 
cacy, in  all  that  prose  may  legitimately  borrow  from 
poetry,  there  is  no  lack  of  any  rhetorical  excellence.  At 
times  the  fervour  of  the  rhetoric  carries  us  to  real  heights 
of  imaginative  eloquence,  and  it  is  not  often  that  the 
eloquence  degenerates  into  bombast  or  that  the  glitter 
of  the  style  becomes  merely  meretricious ;  while  we 
find  comparatively  little  of  the  affected  prettiness  or 
careless  verbiage  that  are  too  frequent  in  the  later  novels. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  curious  absence  in  Contarini 
of  the  special  qualities  which  give  to  the  novels  their 
peculiar  flavour.  Disraeli  is  here  so  full  of  his  high 
poetic  theme  that  we  seldom  see  the  familiar  ironic 
smile  playing  over  his  features  or  catch  that  note  of 

1 1  am  indebted  for  this  passage  to  Dr.  F.  C.  Brewster's  work 
Disraeli  in  Outline,  but  have  not  succeeded  in  tracing  the  original 
reference. 

2  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  :  Hours  in  a  Library,  II.,  p.  139. 
VOL.  i  —  o 


194  CONTARINI   FLEMING   AND   ALROY       [CHAP,  x 

mocking  laughter  which  is   heard  so  often  in  his  other 
works. 


Alroy,  the  second  direct  product  of  the  Eastern  jour- 
ney, though,  as  already  noted,  not  published  till  March, 
1833,  was  begun  two  years  earlier  during  Disraeli's  visit 
to  Jerusalem  ;  indeed,  in  later  life  Disraeli  ascribed  to 
it  an  even  earlier  origin. 

I  had  commenced  Alroy  the  year  after  my  first  publica- 
tion, and  had  thrown  the  manuscript  aside.  Being  at 
Jerusalem  in  the  year  1831,  and  visiting  the  traditionary 
Tombs  of  the  Kings,  my  thoughts  recurred  to  the  marvellous 
career  which  had  attracted  my  boyhood,  and  I  shortly  after 
finished  a  work  which  I  began  the  year  after  I  wrote  Vivian 
Grey.1 

The  novel  appeared  as  '  The  Wondrous  Tale  of 
Alroy,  by  The  Author  of  Vivian  G-rey  and  Oontarini 
Fleming?  and  with  a  dedication  to  Sarah  Disraeli  ;  and 
like  Vivian  G-rey  and  The  Young  Duke  it  was  published 
by  Colburn;  Murray,  out  of  heart  with  the  frightful 
aspect  of  coming  events,'  and  'his  incessant  ill  luck 
in  the  publication  of  works  of  fiction,'  and  not  encouraged 
by  the  comparative  failure  of  Contarini  Fleming,  had 
returned  the  manuscript  unread  when  the  author  sub- 
mitted it. 

The  period  of  the  novel  is  the  twelfth  century,  when 
the  Caliphate  was  in  a  state  of  rapid  decay  and  the 
Empire  of  Western  Asia  was  divided  among  the  Seljuks  : 
its  purpose,  in  Disraeli's  own  words, '  the  celebration  of 
a  gorgeous  incident  in  the  annals  of  that  sacred  and 
romantic  people  from  whom  I  derive  my  blood  and  name.' 2 
The  real  David  Alroy  appears  to  have  been  little  better 
than  a  vulgar  impostor,  but  Disraeli  has  idealised  him 
into  a  figure  worthy  to  be  compared  with  Judas  Mac- 
cabaeus. 

1  General  Preface  to  the  Novels. 

3  Preface  to  The  Revolutionary  Epick,  1834. 


1833]  CAREER   OF   ALROY  195 

A  scion  of  the  House  of  David  and  one  of  those 
Hebrew  rulers  who  under  the  title  of  'Princes  of  the 
Captivity '  exercised  a  certain  authority  over  their  own 
people  by  the  tolerant  permission  of  the  Mahomedan 
conquerors,  Alroy  conceives  the  idea  of  winning  back 
the  independence  of  Israel  and  restoring  her  departed 
glory.  The  slaying  of  a  Seljuk  chief,  who  has  offered 
violence  to  his  sister,  compels  him  to  fly  from  his  home, 
and  encouraged  by  a  visit  to  Jabaster,  a  priest  who  had 
been  the  mentor  of  his  youth,  and  who  had  diligently 
fostered  his  high  ideals  and  ambitions,  he  sets  out  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  to  win  the  token  of  his  election. 
There,  after  manifold  sufferings  and  adventures,  he 
arrives ;  and  there  in  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings,  amid  inci- 
dents of  supernatural  awe,  he  receives  the  sceptre  of 
King  Solomon  from  the  hands  of  his  great  ancestor  him- 
self. With  full  assurance  of  his  mission,  and  supported 
by  Jabaster,  he  now  raises  the  standard  of  revolt  and 
sweeps  through  Western  Asia  on  a  tide  of  victory  and 
conquest.  But  with  constant  success  his  belief  in  him- 
self grows  overweening,  and  he  begins  to  dream  of  other 
things  than  Jabaster's  lofty  but  narrow  aim  of  re-estab- 
lishing the  theocracy. 

The  world  is  mine ;  and  shall  I  yield  the  prize,  the  universal 
and  heroic  prize,  to  realize  the  dull  tradition  of  some  dream- 
ing priest  and  consecrate  a  legend?  ...  Is  the  Lord 
of  Hosts  so  slight  a  God,  that  we  must  place  a  barrier  to  His 
sovereignty,  and  fix  the  boundaries  of  Omnipotence  between 
the  Jordan  and  the  Lebanon  ?  .  .  .  Universal  Empire 
must  not  be  founded  on  sectarian  prejudices  and  exclusive 
rights. l 

Convincing  himself  by  such  reasoning  as  this,  he  makes 
Bagdad  the  centre  of  his  kingdom,  and  is  there  ensnared 
by  a  Delilah  in  the  form  of  the  daughter  of  the  Caliph. 
Jabaster  and  the  more  fanatical  spirits  presently  rise  in 
revolt,  and  the  friend  of  Alroy's  youth  falls  a  victim 

i  Pt.  VIII.  ch.  l. 


196  CONTARINI  FLEMING  AND  ALROY       [CHAP,  x 

to  the  vindictive  hatred  of  the  Sultana.  From  that 
moment  Alroy's  good  fortune  is  at  an  end;  his  enemies 
begin  to  close  upon  him ;  and  a  crushing  defeat  in  battle 
at  the  hands  of  the  Sultan  of  Karasme  causes  his  mush- 
room empire  to  disappear.  Taken  captive  Alroy  redeems 
his  fame,  and  wins  the  crown  of  martyrdom  by  refusing 
life  and  liberty  as  the  reward  of  apostasy  from  his  faith. 
His  epitaph  is  written  in  the  words  with  which  his  beloved 
sister  Miriam  —  a  character  modelled  on  Disraeli's  own 
sister  —  endeavours  to  console  him  in  his  failure  and 
remorse  :  — 

You  have  shown  what  we  can  do  and  shall  do.  Your 
memory  alone  is  inspiration.  A  great  career,  although 
baulked  of  its  end,  is  still  a  landmark  of  human  energy. 
Failure,  when  sublime,  is  not  without  its  purpose.  Great 
deeds  are  great  legacies,  and  work  with  wondrous  usury.  By 
what  Man  has  done,  we  learn  what  Man  can  do ;  and  gauge 
the  power  and  prospects  of  our  race.1 

Did  the  young  Disraeli  himself  ever  dream  that  the 
legacy  of  Alroy  had  descended  to  him,  or  feel  the  inspira- 
tion of  his  memory  as  a  motive  not  merely  to  literary 
effort,  but  to  an  active  carer  ?  It  is  probable  enough. 
As  he  stood  in  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings  at  Jerusalem,  or 
gazed  on  Mount  Zion,  the  thought  may  have  passed 
through  his  mind  that  the  true  aim  of  the  political  ambition 
which  was  beginning  to  shape  itself  within  him  should  be 
to  win  back  the  Holy  Land  for  the  chosen  people,  and 
restore  the  sceptre  to  Judah.  To  any  young  Hebrew 
of  genius  such  thoughts  would  naturally  —  nay,  inevitably 
—  occur  ;  and  in  no  other  way  can  Disraeli's  own  declara- 
tion that  Alroy  represented  his  '  ideal  ambition '  be  con- 
strued. Men  of  great  achievement  have  often,  in  addition 
to  the  imaginative  aims  which  are  the  inspiration  of  their 
practical  careers,  their  merely  visionary  fancies  which 
they  never  realise,  which  they  never  seriously  try  to 
realise,  and  which  are  perhaps  neither  capable  nor 

»Pt.  X.  ch.  19. 


1833]  DISRAELI'S   IDEAL   AMBITION  197 

deserving  of  realisation,  but  which  cling  to  them  through 
life  and,  though  they  may  not  seriously  deflect  their 
energies,  give  a  certain  bias  to  their  character  and  colour 
to  their  outlook.  With  all  his  dreaminess  Disraeli's 
genius  was  far  too  practical  to  permit  him  to  devote  his 
life  to  the  pursuit  of  a  mere  phantom ;  but  it  is  probable 
that  these  early  visions  never  wholly  forsook  him.  They 
had  a  soil  of  genuine  racial  sentiment  from  which 
perennially  to  spring,  and  though  it  would  be  easy  to 
exaggerate  their  significance,  yet  to  know  them  is  to 
get  a  glimpse  into  the  inmost  recesses  of  Disraeli's  mind. 
Therein  lies  the  value  of  Alroy  for  us  now.  Before  the 
novel  was  published  Disraeli  boasted  to  a  lady  of  evan- 
gelical turn,  who  inquired  after  his  spiritual  welfare,  that 
it  would  show  he  read  his  Bible.  He  read  his  Bible, 
indeed,  though  less  to  edification  as  his  pious  friend  would 
have  interpreted  the  word  than  as  a  record  of  exclusive 
interest  to  the  race  to  which  he  belonged.  In  this 
esoteric  sense  Alroy  is  saturated  with  the  language  and 
spirit  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  more  than  any  of 
Disraeli's  works,  more  even  than  Tailored,  it  reveals 
the  Hebraic  aspect  of  his  many-sided  nature. 

Apart  from  this  biographic  interest  not  much  can 
be  said  in  commendation  of  the  novel.  We  are  im- 
pressed, in  the  dialogue  especially,  by  the  quickness 
and  success  with  which  Disraeli  has  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  East,  but  his  story  as  a  story  never  really  grips  us. 
The  East  may  give  us  pictures  or  the  embryonic  tales 
which  are  little  more  than  pictures  ;  but  where  events 
lead  to  nothing  and  life  is  a  troubled  sea  with  no  definite 
current  setting  through  it,  an  historical  novel  is  impos- 
sible. The  remoteness  and  unreality  of  the  surroundings 
destroy  the  interest  for  Western  readers,  and  the  effect 
of  unreality  is  increased  by  the  author's  too  faithful 
adherence  to  his  Eastern  models  in  the  things  in  which 
they  are  least  deserving  of  imitation.  In  his  descrip- 
tions he  falls  into  a  mechanical  magnificence  and  in  his 
action  into  a  mechanical  hyperbole  which  are  certainly  in 


198  CONTARINI   FLEMING   AND  ALROY         [CHAP,  x 

harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  East,  but  no  less  certainly 
wearisome  and  absurd  ;  and  he  needlessly  introduces  a 
crude  supernatural  machinery  which  we  like  none  the 
better  for  being  told  in  the  preface  that  it  is  '  cabalistical 
and  correct.'  Disraeli  had  to  pay  for  the  faults  of  his 
education,  and  the  mysticism  which  was  such  a  marked 
feature  of  his  character,  and  which  on  its  higher  and 
imaginative  side  was  a  source  of  power  and  insight,  too 
often  degenerated  into  a  taste  for  mere  hocus-pocus. 

But  the  most  obvious  defect  of  the  novel  is  the  style 
in  which  it  is  written.  In  Contarini  we  had  a  strain  of 
fervid  rhetoric  rarely  without  distinction.  In  Alroy  we 
get  in  its  place  a  sort  of  prose  poetry  which  the  author 
only  adopted,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  preface  to  the  original 
edition,  '  after  long  meditation  and  a  severe  examination 
of  its  qualities.'  His  tale  is  'essentially  dramatic,'  and 
therefore  he  introduces  '  occasional  bursts  of  lyric  melody 
for  that  illustrative  music  without  which  all  dramatic 
representations  are  imperfect.'  His  subject  is  essentially 
poetical,  and  therefore 

I  never  hesitate  although  I  discard  verse  to  have  recourse 
to  rhythm  whenever  I  consider  its  introduction  desirable,  and 
occasionally  even  to  rhyme.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  style 
in  which  I  have  attempted  to  write  this  book  is  a  delicate  and 
difficult  instrument  for  an  artist  to  handle.  He  must  not 
abuse  his  freedom.  He  must  alike  beware  the  turgid  and  the 
bombastic,  the  meagre  and  the  mean.  He  must  be  easy  in 
his  robes  of  state,  and  a  degree  of  elegance  and  dignity  must 
accompany  him  even  in  the  camp  and  the  market  house.  The 
language  must  rise  gradually  with  the  rising  passions  of  the 
speakers  and  subside  in  harmonious  unison  with  their  sinking 
emotions. 

Whether  it  would  ever  be  possible  to  use  such  an  instru- 
ment with  effect  it  is  not  necessary  to  inquire  ;  suffice  it 
to  say  that  Disraeli  has  not  succeeded.  When  he  tries 
to  be  most  impressive  he  is  often  simply  grotesque,  and 
at  times  we  ask  in  amazement  if  his  sense  of  the  ridiculous 
has  wholly  deserted  him.  Take  for  instance  such  a  piece 
of  intolerable  bombast  as  the  following  :  — 


1833]  PROSE   POETRY  199 

Pallid  and  mad  he  swift  upsprang,  and  he  tore  up  a  tree  by 
its  lusty  roots,  and  down  the  declivity,  dashing  with  rapid 
leaps,  panting  and  wild,  he  struck  the  ravisher  on  the  temple 
with  the  mighty  pine. 

That  fantastical  genius  Beckford  was  enchanted  with 
it  all,  and  wished  '  the  truly  wondrous  tale  had  been 
extended  to  twenty  volumes';  this  in  spite  of  some 
distress  at  the  discovery  that  '  Disraeli  and  company 
were  smoking  away  like  vulgar  factories.'  Disraeli 
wrote 1  to  his  sister  immediately  after  publication :  — 

Of  Alroy  I  hear  golden  opinions,  and  I  doubt  not  of  its 
success.  .  .  .1  hear  no  complaints  of  its  style,  except  from 
the  critics.  The  common  readers  seem  to  like  the  poetry  and 
the  excitement.  Mrs.  Jameson  told  Otley  that  'reading  it 
was  like  riding  an  Arab.'  Slade,  the  traveller,  said  'it  was  the 
most  thoroughly  Oriental  book  he  had  ever  read.' 

In  spite,  however,  of  these  encouraging  pronouncements, 
the  author's  hopes  were  hardly  realised :  the  subject  was 
too  remote  and,  his  own  opinion  notwithstanding,  the 
style  presented  too  easy  a  mark  for  ridicule2;  so  that 
the  book,  if  not  a  failure,  had  at  best  only  a  moderate 
success. 

With  Alroy  was  published  a  short  story  entitled  The 
Rise  of  Iskander,  which  Disraeli  appears  to  have  written 
while  he  was  on  a  visit  to  Bath  with  Bulwer.  Iskander 
is  the  Scanderbeg  of  Gibbon,  the  Albanian  prince  who 
won  his  independence  in  the  days  of  Mahommed  the 
Conqueror;  and  the  piece  was  designed  to  provide  a 
contrast  to  Alroy  by  setting  forth  'the  history  of  a 
Christian  hero  placed  in  a  somewhat  similar  position  but 

1  March  26,  1833  ;  Letters,  p.  81. 

2  There  was  an  amusing  parody  by  Maginn,  Disraeli's  old  acquaintance 
of  Representative  days  :  — '  O  reader  dear !  do  pray  look  here,  and  you 
will  spy  the  curly  hair  and  forehead  fair,  and  nose  so  high  and  gleaming 
eye  of  Benjamin  Dis-ra-e-li,  the  wondrous  boy  who  wrote  Alroy  in  rhyme 
and  prose,  only  to  show,  how  long  ago  victorious  Judah's  lion-banner 
rose,'  &c.     There  is  a  good  deal  of  this  prose  poetry  in  The  Young  Diike, 
and  Disraeli  never  wholly  lost  the  habit.     Even  in  his  last  novel  we  find 
him  in  the  middle  of  a  passage  of  ordinary  prose  suddenly  breaking  into 
verse:  'And  now  and  then  was  heard  a  silver  laugh,  and  now  and  then 
was  breathed  a  gentle  sigh '  (Endymion,  Ch.  II.). 


200  CONTARINI  FLEMING  AND  ALROY        [CHAP,  x 

achieving  a  very  different  end.  It  is  a  pretty  tale, 
as  the  author  claimed,  and  it  shows  to  what  good 
account  he  could  turn  his  brief  visit  to  Albania ;  but 
apart  from  this  it  has  nothing  that  is  peculiar  to 
Disraeli  nor  any  special  significance  in  the  story  of  his 
inner  development. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ENTRY  INTO  POLITICS 
1832-1833 

*  Poetry  is  the  safety  valve  of  my  passions,  but  I  wish 
to  act  what  I  write.'  Disraeli  was  not  the  man  to  de- 
generate into  a  dilettante  recluse  like  Contarini  or  to 
waste  his  life  in  fanciful  dreams  of  Hebrew  conquest 
after  the  manner  of  Alroy.  The  journey  to  the  East 
had  restored  him  to  health  and  vigour.  He  arrived  in 
England  '  in  famous  condition  —  better  indeed  than  I 
ever  was  in  my  life  and  full  of  hope  and  courage  in 
spite  of  the  overwhelming  catastrophe ' ;  so  he  wrote 
to  Austen.  One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  withdraw  his 
name  from  the  books  of  Lincoln's  Inn;  he  would  not 
even  pay  the  tribute  to  convention  of  cloaking  his  vague 
ambitions  under  the  dress  of  an  acknowledged  profes- 
sion. His  debts  were  a  heavy  burden,  but  he  had  one 
tangible  asset  in  his  literary  reputation.  'Mr.  Disraeli, 
Sir,  is  come  to  town  —  young  Mr.  Disraeli,'  said  Col- 
burn  to  Bulwer.  '  Won't  he  give  us  a  nice  light  article 
about  his  travels?'  In  his  pen  Disraeli  had  a  per- 
manent source  of  income;  but  during  his  absence  he 
had  developed  new  ambitions  that  were  more  likely  to 
increase  expenditure  than  income.  In  the  East,  as 
health  and  courage  returned,  his  thoughts  had  begun 
to  dwell  on  the  attractions  of  an  active  political  career. 
Even  before  he  left  England  Parliament  seems  to  have 

201 


202  ENTRY  INTO  POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

been  in  his  mind.  'I  should  have  liked  you,'  writes 
Austen  in  July,  1830,  to  have  had  a  picking  out  of  this 
general  election  ;  it  would  be  a  famous  opening  and  lots 
to  say.'  During  his  sojourn  in  the  East,  Disraeli  had 
been  a  diligent  reader  of  G-alignani,  and  he  used  in  later 
life  to  say  that  it  was  in  studying  a  file  of  that  '  excellent 
publication '  during  his  long  detention  in  quarantine  at 
Malta  that  he  first  began  to  understand  politics.1  Through 
G-alignani  he  was  able  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the 
Reform  movement,  and  he  followed  them  with  the  keenest 
interest.  '  What  a  confusion  you  are  all  in,'  he  wrote 
to  Austen  from  Constantinople,  when  he  read  of  that 
4  bold  act  of  cowardice ' 2  on  the  part  of  the  Wellington 
Ministry,  the  postponement  of  the  King's  visit  to  the 
City  in  November,  1830.  '  I  have  just  got  through 
a  batch  of  Q-alignanis.  What  a  capital  Pantomime  it 
would  make  :  "  The  Lord  Mayor's  Day  or  Harlequin 
Brougham  "  ' ;  and  the  fancy  pleased  him  so  much  that 
by  a  habit  that  was  already  forming  he  repeated  it  in 
almost  the  same  words  in  letters  to  his  father  and  Bulwer, 
adding  to  Bulwer,  '  Oh  for  the  days  of  Aristophanes, 
or  Foote,  or  even  Scaramouch  !  Damn  the  Licenser  1 ' 
'  The  wonderful  news  which  meets  me  here  in  a  pile  of 
Gralignanis  has  quite  unsettled  my  mind,'  he  writes  from 
Cairo  on  reading  of  the  introduction  of  the  first  Reform 
Bill.  '  I  am  of  course  very  anxious  to  hear  of  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Bill.  I  have  heard  up  to  the  majority  of  one.' 
Disraeli  arrived  in  England  on  the  day  that  Parliament 
was  prorogued  after  the  rejection  of  the  second  Reform 

1  Life  ofJowett,  II.,  p.  109. 

2  The  phrase  was  Lord  Wellesley's.    Disraeli  has  an  interesting  note 
on  this  occurrence,  written  in  1836  :  — 

'  Sir  Robert  Peel  told  me  that  Hume  was  the  real  cause  of  the  King's 
not  going  into  the  City.  They  had  received  many  warnings  and  much 
information,  when  suddenly  Joseph  sought  a  confidential  interview  at 
the  Home  Office  and  told  Peel  he  was  in  possession  of  information  of  an 
extraordinary  character  and  that  an  insurrection  was  certain.  After- 
wards Joseph  had  the  impudence  to  make  a  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons  abusing  the  Ministers  for  not  letting  the  King  go,  and  declaring 
that  it  was  his  solemn  belief  that  the  outcry  was  all  an  alarming  invention 
of  their  own.  "  I  might  have  risen  and  crushed  him,  the  impudent  dog," 
said  Peel.  Why  did  he  not  ?  The  interview  was  certainly  confidential, 
but  the  speech  absolved  the  Minister,  in  my  opinion.' 


1832]  IN   LONDON  203 

Bill  by  the  Lords.  A  fortnight  later,  during  the  riotous 
weeks  that  followed  the  prorogation,  he  writes  to  Austen 
somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  an  old  Tory :  '  The  times  are 
damnable.  I  take  the  gloomiest  view  of  affairs,  but 
we  must  not  lose  our  property  without  a  struggle.' 
'  In  the  event  of  a  new  election,'  he  adds,  '  I  offer  myself 
for  Wy combe.'  No  new  election,  however,  came  at 
present,  and  he  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  winter  at 
Bradenham  'working  like  a  tiger,'  no  doubt  at  Con- 
tarini.  By  the  middle  of  February  he  is  in  London, 
'  most  comfortably  located  in  Duke  Street,'  and  enjoying 
his  first  real  taste  of  the  pleasures  of  London  society. 
Through  his  friend  Bulwer,  already  at  the  height  of  his 
fame,  Disraeli  at  once  found  his  way  into  the  charmed 
circle  of  Mayfair,  and  in  his  letters  to  his  sister  he  has 
left  us  a  graphic  and  vivacious  record  of  his  adventures 
in  this  paradise. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Feb.  18, 1832. 

We  had  a  very  brilliant  reunion  at  Bulwer's  last  night. 
Among  the  notables  were  Lords  Strangford1  and  Mulgrave,2 
with  the  latter  of  whom  I  had  a  great  deal  of  conversation ; 
Count  D'Orsay,  the  famous  Parisian  dandy ;  there  was  a 
large  sprinkling  of  blues  —  Lady  Morgan,  Mrs.  Norton, 
L.E.L.,  &c.  Bulwer  came  up  to  me,  said  '  There  is  one 
blue  who  insists  upon  an  introduction.'  '  Oh,  my  dear 
fellow,  I  cannot  really ;  the  power  of  repartee  has  deserted 
me.'  '  I  have  pledged  myself,  you  must  conie ' ;  so  he  led 
me  up  to  a  very  sumptuous  personage,  looking  like  a  full- 
blown rose,  Mrs.  Gore.  Albany  Fonblanque,3  my  critic,  was 
in  the  room,  but  I  did  not  see  him.  .  .  .  The  Mr. 
Hawkins  who  made  a  wonderful  speech,  and  who,  al- 
though he  squinted  horribly,  was  the  next  day  voted  a 
Cupidon,  and  has  since  lost  his  beauty  by  a  failure,  and 
many  others,  whom  in  this  hurry  I  cannot  recall  —  Charles 

1 6th  Viscount  (1780-1855)  :  A  diplomatist  of  some  distinction  who  had 
been  for  many  years  Minister  at  Lisbon,  and  afterwards  for  some  years 
Ambassador  at  Constantinople. 

2  Afterwards  1st  Marquis  of  Normandy. 

8  Editor  of  the  Examiner. 


204  ENTRY   INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

Villiers,  Henry  Ellis,  &c.  I  avoided  L.E.L.,  who  looked 
the  very  personification  of  Brompton  —  pink  satin  dress  and 
white  satin  shoes,  red  cheeks,  snub  nose,  and  her  hair  d  la 
Sappho. 

Feb.  22. 

I  am  writing  a  very  John  Bull  book,  which  will  quite  delight 
you  and  my  mother.  I  am  still  a  Reformer,  but  shall  destroy 
the  foreign  policy  of  the  Grey  faction.  They  seem  firmly 
fixed  at  home,  although  a  storm  is  without  doubt  brewing 
abroad.  I  think  peers  will  be  created,  and  Charley  Gore 
has  promised  to  let  me  have  timely  notice  if  Baring1  be  one. 
He  called  upon  me,  and  said  that  Lord  John  often  asked 
how  I  was  getting  on  at  Wycombe.  He  fished  as  to  whether 
I  should  support  them.  I  answered,  'They  had  one  claim 
upon  my  support ;  they  needed  it,'  and  no  more. 

April  28. 

The  soiree  last  night  at  Bulwer's  was  really  brilliant,  much 
more  so  than  the  first.  There  were  a  great  many  dames 
there  of  distinction,  and  no  blues.  I  should,  perhaps,  except 
Sappho,  who  was  quite  changed ;  she  had  thrown  off  Greco- 
Bromptonian  costume  and  was  perfecly  &  la  Frqnqaise, 
and  really  looked  pretty.  At  the  end  of  the  evening  I 
addressed  a  few  words  to  her,  of  the  value  of  which 
she  seemed  sensible.  I  was  introduced,  'by  particular 
desire/  to  Mrs.  Wyndham  Lewis,  a  pretty  little  woman,  a 
flirt,  and  a  rattle;  indeed,  gifted  with  a  volubility  I  should 
think  unequalled,  and  of  which  I  can  convey  no  idea.  She 
told  me  that  she  liked  '  silent,  melancholy  men.'  I  answered 
'  that  I  had  no  doubt  of  it.'  . 

I  had  a  long  conversation  with  Lord  Mulgrave,  and 
a  man  talked  to  me  very  much  who  turned  out  to  be 
Lord  William  Lennox.  In  the  course  of  the  evening  I 
stumbled  over  Tom  Moore,  to  whom  I  introduced  my- 
self. It  is  evident  that  he  has  read  or  heard  of  the 
Young  Duke,  as  his  courtesy  was  marked.  'How  is  your 
head  ?  '  he  enquired.  '  I  have  heard  of  you,  as  everybody 
has.  Did  we  not  meet  at  Murray's  once  ? '  He  has  taken 
his  name  off  the  Athenaeum,  '  really  Brooks  is  sufficient ; 
so  I  shall  not  see  your  father  any  more.  .  .  . '  I  remained 
in  Hertford  Street  after  the  breaking  up,  smoking.  Colonel 
Webster,  who  married  Boddington's  daughter,  said  to  me, 
*  Take  care,  my  good  fellow ;  I  lost  the  most  beautiful  woman 

1  Sir  Thomas  Baring,  father  of  the  first  Lord  Northbrook,  and  at  this 
time  M.P.  for  Wycombe. 


1832]  MEETING   WITH   PEEL  205 

in  the  world  by  smoking.  It  has  prevented  more  liaisons 
than  the  dread  of  a  duel  or  Doctors'  Commons.'  Then  I 
replied,  'You  have  proved  that  it  is  a  very  moral  habit.' 
W.,  you  know,  although  no  Adonis,  is  a  terrible  rout. 

May  15. 

I  very  much  fear  that  the  Whigs  are  again  in,  and  on  their 
own  terms.  Such,  indeed,  is  the  report,  but  that  is  only  a 
shot  founded  on  last  night's  debate;  but  it  is,  I  apprehend, 
a  conjecture  that  will  turn  out  to  be  a  prophecy.  I  dined  at 
[Lord]  Eliot's1  on  Saturday,  and  met  Colonel  and  Captain 
A'Court,  brothers  of  Lord  Heytesbury,  and  Lord  Strang- 
ford.  We  had  some  delightful  conversation  and  remained 
till  a  late  hour.  Strangford  is  an  aristocratic  Tom  Moore; 
his  flow  is  incessant  and  brilliant.  The  A'Courts  very  un- 
affected,  hearty  fellows. 

Yesterday  I  dined  at  Eliot's  —  a  male  party  consisting  of 
eight.  I  sat  between  Peel  and  Herries,2  but  cannot  tell  you 
the  names  of  the  other  guests,  although  they  were  all  members 
of  one  or  other  House;  but  I  detected  among  them  Captain 
York,  whom  I  had  met  in  the  Levant.  Peel  was  most  gracious. 
He  is  a  very  great  man,  indeed,  and  they  all  seem  afraid  of 
him.  By-the-bye,  I  observed  that  he  attacked  his  turbot 
most  entirely  with  his  knife,  so  Walker's  story  is  true.  I  can 
easily  conceive  that  he  could  be  very  disagreeable,  but  yester- 
day he  was  in  a  most  condescending  mood  and  unbent  with 
becoming  haughtiness.  I  reminded  him  by  my  dignified 
familiarity  both  that  he  was  ex-Minister  and  I  a  present 
Radical.  Herries  —  old,  grey-headed,  financial  Herries  — 
turned  out  quite  a  literary  man  —  so  false  are  one's  impres- 
sions. The  dinner  was  sumptuous,  and  we  broke  up  late.3 

The  '  John  Bull  book,'  of  which  he  wrote  in  February 
and  which  was  to  '  destroy  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
Grey  faction,'  was  published  by  Murray  in  April  under 
the  title  of  "England  and  France;  or  a  Cure  for  the 
Ministerial  Gallomania."  It  appeared  anonymously  and 
with  an  ironical  dedication  to  the  Prime  Minister  as  '  the 
most  eminent  Gallomaniac  of  the  day.'  4  With  regard 
to  the  authorship  of  this  work,'  Disraeli  wrote  to  Murray, 
*I  should  never  be  ashamed  of  being  considered  the 

1  Afterwards  3rd  Earl  of  St.  Germans. 

2  Chanceller  of  the  Exchequer  in  Goderich's  Ministry. 
8  Letters,  pp.  70-75. 


206  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xr 

author.  I  should  be  proud  to  be  ;  but  I  am  not.  It  is 
written  by  Legion,  but  I  am  one  of  them,  and  I  bear  the 
responsibility.'1  His  chief  coadjutors  appear  to  have 
been  Baron  d'Haussez,  a  legitimist  exile,  who  had  been 
Minister  of  Marine  in  the  last  Ministry  of  Charles  X.,  and 
Baron  de  Haber,  'a  mysterious  German  gentleman  of 
Jewish  extraction,'  as  Dr.  Smiles  describes  him.  '  Beware, 
my  dear,  of  secret  agents,'  wrote  Isaac  D'Israeli  to  his 
son,  who  had  told  him  that  he  was  about  to  startle 
Europe';  'beware  of  forgeries  and  delusions.'  His  son 
had  all  his  life  a  certain  weakness  for  mystery  and  intrigue, 
and  disregarded  the  warning :  but  Murray,  who,  as  pub- 
lisher, bore  the  real  responsibility,  was  less  disposed  to 
be  venturesome,  and  insisted,  to  Disraeli's  great  annoy- 
ance, on  the  proofs  being  read  by  Croker.  '  I  have  no 
desire,'  writes  the  irritated  author,  '  to  thrust  my 
acquaintance  on  your  critic.  More  than  once  I  have 
had  an  opportunity  to  form  that  acquaintance,  and  more 
than  once  I  have  declined  it.'  It  will  be  remembered 
that  at  the  time  of  the  Representative  affair  Disraeli  had 
found  reason  for  resenting  Croker's  interference,  and  the 
prejudice  which  had  slumbered  in  his  mind  since  then 
had  just  been  reawakened  by  an  incident  of  the  present 
year.  A  few  weeks  before  the  letter  to  Murray  Disraeli 
had  failed  in  an  attempt  to  secure  election2  to  the 
Athenseum,  a  club  of  which  his  father  was  one  of  the 
original  members,  and  Croker  practically  the  founder; 
and  rightly  or  wrongly  the  Bradenham  family  laid  the 
failure  to  the  charge  of  Croker.  We  shall  hear  again  of 
the  antipathy  which  these  things  combined  to  foster. 

The  pamphlet,  or  book  —  for  it  runs  to  300  pages  —  is  a 
violent  diatribe  against  the  foreign  policy  of  Palmerston 
and  against  the  friendly  understanding  with  France  upon 
which  this  policy  was  for  the  moment  based.  The  alli- 
ance between  the  two  countries  is,  we  are  assured,  '  un- 

1  Smiles's  Life  of  Murray,  II.,  p.  344. 

2  Under  the  rule  allowing  the  Committee  to  elect  anually  a  limited 
number  of  persons  '  who  have  attained  to  distinguished  eminence.'   Disraeli 
did  not  become  a  member  till  1866. 


1832]  GALLOMANIA  207 

natural,'  and  their  friendship  'fictitious.'  Their  'perma- 
nent interests  are  incompatible  from  natural  passions 
and  prejudices,  if  from  no  other  reasons.'  'The  resolu- 
tion to  be  supreme,  and  the  consequent  hatred  of  England, 
are  rooted  in  the  breast  of  every  Frenchman.'  Louis 
Philippe  and  his  government  are  attacked  with  a  bitter- 
ness for  which  d'Haussez  no  doubt  was  responsible  ;  and 
with  a  great  parade  of  secret  information  the  writer  pro- 
fesses to  set  forth  the  true  history  of  '  that  mean  and 
monstrous  incident  which  hitherto  we  have  been  pleased 
to  style  a  Glorious  Revolution.' 

I  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  English  Minister,  in 
sacrificing  all  the  ancient  principles  of  our  policy  to  ally  him- 
self with  our  hereditary  foe,  has  not  even  succeeded  in  the 
object  for  which  he  has  thus  imprudently  and  previously 
paid  the  dearest  price;  and  that  we  have,  in  fact,  deserted 
Portugal  and  outraged  Holland,  not  for  the  friendship  of 
the  French  nation,  but  for  a  mere  transient  connexion  with 
two  individuals  —  the  French  King  and  the  French  Minister; 
one  of  whom  that  nation  despises  and  the  other  of  whom  that 
nation  detests.1 

Disraeli  afterwards  became  a  personal  friend  and 
admirer  of  Louis  Philippe's,  and  a  consistent  supporter 
of  the  policy  of  friendship  with  France  through  all  her 
many  changes  of  Government.  No  one  would  dream 
of  turning  to  this  hastily-written  pamphlet,  in  which  he 
made  his  pen  the  instrument  for  setting  forth  the  views 
of  others,  in  order  to  obtain  light  on  his  real  and  perma- 
nent convictions  in  the  region  of  foreign  affairs.  Both  at 
the  time  of  publication  and  afterwards  he  was  unusually 
silent  as  to  his  connexion  with  the  book.  '  I  am  anxious,' 
he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Austen,  '  that  my  name  should  not  be 
mentioned  in  reference  to  the  work  you  have  been  lately 
reading.  .  .  .  You  are  so  familiar  with  my  writings 
that  you  will  not  give  me  credit  for  every  idiotism  you 
meet  in  its  columns.'  What  is  of  real  interest  now  is 
the  choice  of  subject  for  his  first  venture  in  the  domain 

1  Gallomania,  p.  255. 


208  ENTRY  INTO  POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

of  practical  politics.  Though  it  was  not  until  near  the 
end  of  his  career  that  he  was  able  to  assert  himself  effec- 
tively in  the  field  of  foreign  affairs  he  had  early  divined  the 
truth  that  it  is  in  this  field  far  more  than  in  the  noisy  and 
exaggerated  strife  of  parties  over  questions  of  internal 
politics  that  history  is  really  made.  'There  is  no  sub- 
ject,' he  writes  in  the  Gallomania,  '  on  which,  as  a 
society,  we  are  so  misinformed  as  our  foreign  policy.  .  . 
To  my  mind  it  is  of  primary,  of  paramount,  importance  : 
upon  our  foreign  policy  the  safety  as  well  as  the  glory 
of  this  country  as  a  great  Empire  depends.'  After  the 
experience  of  a  lifetime  his  judgment  remained  the  same. 
'Real  politics,'  says  Lady  Montfort  to  Endymion,  'are 
the  possession  and  distribution  of  power.  I  want  to  see 
you  give  your  mind  to  foreign  affairs.' 

One  passage  of  the  Gallomania,  which  is  clearly  not 
the  outcome  of  any  extraneous  inspiration,  has  a  curious 
and  picturesque  interest. 

An  Englishman  recently  resident  in  Egypt  discovered  by 
an  accident  that  a  secret  agent  in  the  employ  of  France 
was  in  the  habit  of  being  honoured  with  private  interviews 
by  the  Pasha.  It  was  immediately  after  the  events  of  July. 
As  the  Englishman  was  well  cognisant  of  the  constant  intrigues 
of  the  French  in  Egypt  —  a  country  of  which  we  may  some 
day  hear,  although  it  is  not  at  present  much  thought  of  at 
the  Foreign  Office  —  he  resolved  to  ascertain  the  nature 
of  their  conferences.  By  what  means  he  succeeded,  it  matters 
not  at  present.  .  .  .  Let  it  suffice  that  he  did  ascertain 
that,  in  the  event  of  any  collision  with  England,  a  French 
army  was  to  be  received  in  Egypt  and  that  India  was  to  be 
threatened.  .  .  .  The  feelings  of  the  Moslemin  population 
of  India  were  to  be  excited,  and  even  the  Hindus  were  to  be 
reminded  that  the  most  ancient  temples  of  their  creed  rose 
on  the  palmy  banks  of  Nile.  .  .  .  We  possess  no 
diplomatic  agent  in  Egypt.  A  Consul-General,  indeed, 
resides  there,  but  his  residence  is  the  seaport  of  Alexandria. 
.  .  .  But  it  so  happened  that  about  this  time  an  eminent 
person  *  distinguished  by  his  talents  and  by  the  confidence 
of  our  Sovereign,  was  travelling  in  Egypt,  and  the  Englishman 

1  Some  erased  words  in  the  original  MS.  show  that  the  '  eminent 
person  '  was  Sir  John  Malcolm. 


1832J  ATTITUDE   TO  REFORM  209 

seized  this  opportunity  of  impressing  upon  that  eminent 
person  his  conviction  of  the  French  intrigues.  The  eminent 
person  was  not  deficient  in  that  frankness  which  we  flatter 
ourselves  to  be  characteristic  of  our  nation.  .  .  .  He 
took  an  opportunity  in  an  early  interview  to  communicate 
to  the  Pasha  his  apprehensions.  '  God  is  great ! '  exclaimed 
his  Highness,  as  he  drew  his  pipe  from  his  mouth.  'It  is 
an  infamous  falsehood.  .  .  .  '  It  is  an  infamous  false- 
hood,' repeated  the  eminent  person  to  his  informant  on  the 
first  opportunity.  'His  Highness  declares  that  we  are  the 
greatest  nation  in  the  world  and  dear  to  him  as  his  own 
children.  Depend  upon  it,  he  is  devoted  to  us.  Has  he 
not  presented  me  during  my  visit  with  his  finest  palace? 
Does  not  his  European  band,  by  his  special  command,  play 
every  day  under  my  window  during  my  dinner?  Does  he 
not  always  proffer  me  the  pipe  of  honour  ?  And  has  he  not 
condescended  to  accept  from  my  hands  the  finest  shawl 
that  Cashmere  ever  produced  ?  '  The  reasoning  was  unanswer- 
able, and  the  solitary  Englishman,  who  was  rather  a  poet  than 
a  politician,  proceeded  on  his  pilgrimage.1 

The  pamphlet  received  the  honour  of  a  leading  article 
in  The  Times?  in  which  recognition  was  freely  given  to 
the  cleverness  and  curious  information  of  the  authors ; 
though  it  was  also  broadly  hinted  that  the  real  motive 
which  animated  them  was  hostility  to  the  Reform  Bill. 
The  third  Reform  Bill  had  now  been  launched,  and  as  it 
proceeded  on  the  perilous  voyage  which  eventually  was 
to  carry  it  into  port,  Disraeli's  sympathy  with  the  cause 
whose  fortunes  it  carried  seemed  rapidly  to  cool.  'I 
am  still  a  Reformer,'  he  wrote,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the 
last  week  of  February ;  but  a  fortnight  later  he  pro- 
nounced the  Bill  to  be  in  a  most  crazy  state,  and  added 
that  he  '  would  not  be  overwhelmed  if  it  failed  altogether. 
Yet  he  erased  some  passages  in  the  Gallomania  that  were 
adverse  to  Reform,  and,  when  Croker  wanted  to  restore 
them,  he  entered  an  emphatic  protest. 

To  John  Murray. 

March  30,  1832. 

It  is  quite  impossible  that  anything  adverse  to  the  general 
measure  of  Reform  can  issue  from  my  pen  or  from  anything 

1  Gallomania,  p.  40.  2  April  20,  1832. 

VOL.   I P 


210  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

to  which  I  contribute.  Within  these  three  months  I  have 
declined  being  returned  for  a  Tory  borough,  and  almost 
within  these  four  days,  to  mention  slight  affairs,  I  have 
refused  to  inscribe  myself  a  member  of  'The  Conservative 
Club.'  I  cannot  believe  that  you  will  place  your  critic's 
feelings  for  a  few  erased  passages  against  my  permanent 
interest.1 


That  curious  phrase,  '  the  general  measure  of  Reform,' 
is  not  without  significance.  It  seems  to  suggest  that 
Disraeli's  attitude  on  the  question  was  already  not  far 
different  from  that  which  he  was  soon  openly  to  adopt  — 
sympathy  with  the  movement  for  broadening  the  electo- 
rate and  bringing  the  House  of  Commons  into  touch 
with  popular  aspirations  combined  with  deep  distrust 
of  the  motives  by  which  the  Whigs  were  animated, 
and  of  the  principles  on  which  they  were  founding  their 
reconstruction  of  the  constituency.  His  political  creed, 
however,  was  still  somewhat  vague,  and  in  the  matter 
of  party  allegiance  his  position  was  still  wholly  unsettled. 
'I  am  neither  Whig  nor  Tory,'  he  explains  in  the 
G-allomania.  'My  politics  are  described  by  one  word, 
and  that  word  is  England.'  His  political  stock-in-trade 
consisted,  in  fact,  of  a  sincere  and  ardent  patriotism, 
genuine  popular  sympathies,  a  strong  and  apparently 
instinctive  antipathy  to  Whiggery,  and  an  hereditary 
disposition  to  Toryism  derived  from  his  father  with  an 
imaginative  interest  in  its  romantic  aspect  that  was  na- 
tive to  himself.  These  apparently  conflicting  principles 
and  elements  had  not  yet  been  fused  into  the  popular 
or  democratic  Toryism  for  which  his  name  stands  in 
history,  and  by  the  eccentricity  of  his  views  and  his 
rather  light-hearted  detachment  from  party  he  was  to 
get  himself  and  his  friends  into  no  small  amount  of 
trouble.  '  I,  too,  have  read  the  Gallomania,'  writes  his 
sister,  4  and  I  long  to  see  you  that  you  may  read  me  many 
riddles.  The  principal  one  is,  how  you  will  reconcile 

i  Smiles,  II.,  p.  344. 


1832]  CANDIDATE   FOR   WYCOMBE  211 

your  constituents  to  your  politics.'  His  '  constituents,' 
indeed,  were  sorely  perplexed  by  the  behaviour  of  their 
candidate. 

From  Sarah  Disraeli. 

You  can  imagine  the  astonishment  and  consternation 
of  old  and  young  Wycombe.  Huffam  [Disraeli's  chief 
supporter]  is  in  a  great  fright  that  you  are  going  to  betray 
him  by  proving  yourself  a  Tory  after  he  has  for  so  many 
months  sworn  to  all  Wycombites  that  you  were  not  one. 
What  will  happen  ?  I  should  be  sorry  to  give  up  the  plan  of 
regenerating  Wycombe  and  turning  them  all  unconsciously 
into  Tories. 

'You  are  probably  acquiring  an  European  name,' 
writes  his  father  in  the  same  connexion,  'but  invention 
and  imagination  are  not  the  qualities  for  a  representative 
of  our  modern  patriots.' 

High  Wycombe,  or  Chepping  Wycombe,  as  it  was 
alternatively  called,  a  few  miles  from  Bradenham  on 
the  London  side,  was  a  typical  close  borough  of  the  time 
before  the  Reform  Act,  returning  to  Parliament  two 
members  whose  election  rested  exclusively  with  the 
Corporation  and  burgesses.  The  sitting  members  were 
the  Hon.  Robert  Smith,  the  son  and  heir  of  the  local 
magnate,  Lord  Carrington,  and  Sir  Thomas  Baring, 
both  supporters  of  the  Grey  Ministry.  When  Disraeli 
began  to  cast  eyes  on  the  borough  there  was  the  possi- 
bility of  an  election  with  the  old  constituency  owing  to 
a  dissolution  in  the  course  of  the  struggle  over  the  Reform 
Bill,  and  there  was  also  the  certainty  of  an  election  with 
the  new  constituency,  and  at  no  distant  date,  if  the 
Reform  Bill  passed.  The  Royal  assent  was  given  to 
the  Bill  on  June  7,  and  a  few  days  before  Disraeli  posted 
down  from  London  to  begin  his  canvass.  'I  start  on 
the  high  Radical  interest,'  he  wrote  to  Austen,  '  and 
take  down  strong  recommendatory  epistles  from 
O'Connell,  Hume,  Burdett,  and  hoc  genus.  Toryism 
is  worn  out,  and  I  cannot  condescend  to  be  a  Whig.' 
Edward  Bulwer,  himself  a  member  of  Parliament  and  a 


212  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

Reformer  of  the  Radical  type,  had  procured  the  letters 
from  O'Connell  and  Hume,  and  to  him  O'Connell's  was 
addressed.  It  regretted  that  the  writer  had '  no  acquaint- 
ance at  Wycombe  to  whom  he  could  recommend  Mr. 
Disraeli.' 

I  am  as  convinced  as  you  are  of  the  great  advantage  the 
cause  of  genuine  Reform  would  obtain  from  his  return.  His 
readiness  to  carry  the  Reform  Bill  into  practical  effect  towards 
the  production  of  cheap  government  and  free  institutions 
is  enhanced  by  the  talent  and  information  which  he  brings 
to  the  good  cause.  I  should  certainly  express  full  reliance 
on  his  political  and  personal  integrity,  and  it  would  give 
me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  assist  in  any  way  in  procuring 
his  return,  but  that,  as  I  have  told  you,  I  have  no  claim  on 
Wycombe,  and  can  only  express  my  surprise  that  it  should 
be  thought  I  had  any. 

Hume  was  more  explicit ;  but  his  knowledge  of  Disraeli 
and  of  the  situation  at  Wycombe  seems  to  have  been 
extremely  meagre,  and  he  presently  discovered  that  he 
had  lent  the  use  of  his  name  against  'his  best  friend' 
Baring,  and  another  staunch  Reformer,  whereas,  by  some 
confusion  between  Wycombe  and  Wendover,  he  had 
believed  that  Disraeli  was  opposing  a  couple  of  Anti- 
Reformers.  A  letter  of  explanation  which  he  wrote  to 
Smith  and  Baring,  and  in  which  he  expressed  a  hope  that 
their  seats  would  not  be  disturbed,  was  of  course  published 
by  their  agents,  and  gave  something  of  a  check  to  Disraeli 
at  the  opening  of  his  campaign.  But  Disraeli  was  not 
easily  discouraged,  and  he  persevered  with  his  candidature. 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

RED  LION,  WTCOMBB. 

I  write  you  a  hurried  note  after  a  hard  day's  canvass. 
Whigs,  Tories,  and  Radicals,  Quakers,  Evangelicals,  Abolition 
of  Slavery,  Reform,  Conservatism,  Cornlaws  —  here  is  hard 
work  for  one  who  is  to  please  all  parties.  I  make  an  excellent 
canvasser,  and  am  told  I  shall  carry  it  if  the  borough  be  opened. 

His  canvass  had  at  first  for  its  objective  the  new 
constituency  of  ten-pound  householders  ;  but  before  it 


1832]  THE   RED   LION   SPEECH  213 

had  proceeded  many  days  the  situation  was  suddenly 
changed.  A  chance  vacancy  occurred  for  one  of  the  seats 
in  Hampshire,  and  in  order  to  contest  it  Sir  Thomas 
Baring  resigned  his  seat  at  Wycombe,  thus  precipitating 
a  single  election  under  the  unreformed  system.  Bulwer 
tried  hard  to  secure  his  friend  from  opposition,  but 
they  seem  to  have  had  no  love  for  Disraeli  at  the  Whig 
headquarters  in  London,  and  Bulwer's  efforts  were  in 
vain. 

To  Mrs.  Austen. 

[June  10, 1832.] 

We  are  hard  at  it.  Sir  Thomas  you  know  has  resigned. 
His  son  was  talked  of;  I  have  frightened  him  off  and  old 
Pascoe  Grenfell  and  Buxton.  Yesterday  the  Treasury  sent 
down  Colonel  Grey  with  a  hired  mob  and  a  band.  Never  was 
such  a  failure.  After  parading  the  town  with  his  paid  voices, 
he  made  a  stammering  speech  of  ten  minutes  from  his  phaeton. 
All  Wycombe  was  assembled.  Feeling  it  was  the  crisis,  I 
jumped  up  on  the  portico  of  the  Red  Lion  and  gave  it  them 
for  an  hour  and  a  quarter.  I  can  give  you  no  idea  of  the  effect. 
I  made  them  all  mad.  A  great  many  absolutely  cried.  I 
never  made  as  many  friends  in  my  life  or  converted  as  many 
enemies.  All  the  women  are  on  my  side  and  wear  my  colors, 
pink  and  white.  Do  the  same.  The  Colonel  returned  to 
town  in  the  evening  absolutely  astounded  out  of  his  presence 
of  mind,  on  dit  never  to  appear  again.  If  he  come  I  am  pre- 
pared for  him. 

B.  D. 

There  is  some  reason  for  suspecting  that  the  terror 
inspired  in  '  old  Pascoe  Grenfell '  and  others  by  Disraeli's 
prowess  was  purely  imaginary,  and  that  they  had  never 
had  any  thought  of  standing  ;  and  certainly  the  official 
candidate,  however  astounded  he  may  have  been,  soon 
reappeared.  Colonel  Grey  was  the  second  son  of  the 
Prime  Minister  and  was  afterwards  to  be  well  known  to 
Disraeli  and  the  world  as  Private  Secretary  to  Queen 
Victoria.  In  the  brief  and  stammering  speech  which  he 
delivered  from  his  phaeton  he  admitted  that  he  had  never 
addressed  a  public  meeting  before.  The  same  may  have 
been  true  of  Disraeli,  but  in  his  case  there  was  none  of  the 


214  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

diffidence  or  hesitation  of  the  beginner.  Tales  are  still 
told  in  Wycombe  of  that  famous  first  speech  from  the 
portico  of  the  Red  Lion.  The  youthful  orator  was  now 
at  the  height  of  his  dandyism,  and  his  '  curls  and  ruffles ' 
played  no  small  part  in  the  election.  Standing  on 
the  top  of  the  porch  beside  the  figure  of  the  lion, 
with  his  pale  face  set  off  by  masses  of  jet-black  hair 
and  his  person  plenteously  adorned  with  lace  and  cam- 
bric, he  must  have  seemed  to  the  spectators  better  fitted 
for  his  rdle  of  fashionable  novelist  than  for  that  of  stren- 
uous politician.  Great,  then,  was  their  surprise  when 
this  '  popinjay,'  as  a  hostile  newspaper  called  him,  be- 
gan to  pour  forth  a  torrent  of  eloquence  with  tremendous 
energy  of  action  and  in  a  voice  that  carried  far  along  the 
High  Street.  He  had  an  instinct  for  the  dramatic  effects 
which  hold  the  attention  of  a  mob.  '  When  the  poll  is 
declared,  I  shall  be  there,'  he  exclaimed,  according  to  a 
Wycombe  tradition,  pointing  to  the  head  of  the  lion, 
*and  my  opponent  will  be  there,'  pointing  to  the  tail. 
By  the  admission  even  of  the  opposite  party  the  speech 
was  a  complete  success  and  his  popularity  with  the  crowd 
was  thenceforth  assured. 

In  the  days  of  unreformed  constituencies,  however, 
elections  were  not  to  be  won  by  popularity  alone.  The 
official  Whigs  and  Reformers  of  course  opposed  him,  and 
their  county  organ l  gave  him  a  first  taste  of  that  malig- 
nant and  rancorous  abuse  of  which  he  was  to  have  such 
full  measure  throughout  his  political  career  and  which  a 
certain  cynical  truculence  on  his  own  part  no  doubt  did 
much  to  provoke.  The  Tory  organ,2  on  the  other  hand, 
welcomed  him  as  an  independent  in  preference  to  the 
official  Whig,  and  gave  him  a  qualified  blessing.  He  had 
placed  his  interests  in  the  hands  of  one  Nash,  the  local 
representative  of  the  great  county  magnate,  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  whose  son,  Lord  Chandos,  was  the  leader 
of  the  Buckinghamshire  Tories ;  and  though  Disraeli 

1  The  Bucks  Gazette.  a  The  Sucks  Herald. 


1832]  FIRST   DEFEAT  215 

declared  on  the  hustings  that  he  had  never  had  any 
communication  with  Lord  Chandos,  his  choice  of  an 
agent  gave  no  little  point  to  the  charge  with  which  the 
Whigs  persistently  assailed  him  that  whetever  his  Radi- 
cal protestations  he  was  all  the  time  a  Tory  at  heart. 
What  is  really  of  interest  now  is  the  undoubted  fact  that 
in  this  his  first  election  he  succeeded  in  effecting  an  alli- 
ance between  Radicals  and  Tories,  between  the  popu- 
lar elements  in  the  constituency  and  the  supporters  of 
privilege  and  tradition.  When  the  day  of  nomination 
came  he  explained  his  position  in  a  long  speech  on  the 
hustings.  He  wore,  he  declared,  the  badge  of  no  party ; 
if  the  Tories  had  supported  him  the  people  had  supported 
him  first ;  as  regards  the  Reform  Act,  it  was  only  a  means 
to  a  great  end ;  he  expected  to  derive  from  it  financial, 
ecclesiastic,  and  legal  reform  :  he  would  seek  the  ame- 
lioration of  the  condition  of  the  poor;  the  happiness  of 
the  many  must  now  be  preferred  to  the  happiness  of 
the  few :  and  as  regards  himself  he  had  never  received 
one  shilling  of  the  public  money  and  he  belonged  to  a 
family  who  never  had ;  he  was  sprung,  moreover,  from 
the  people  and  had  none  of  the  blood  of  the  Plantagenets 
in  his  veins.  But  in  spite  of  this  popular  programme 
and  these  many  popular  qualifications  he  speedily  found 
it  useless  to  persevere,  the  poll  at  its  close  on  June  26 
being  — 

Grey,  20  ; 

Disraeli,  12. 

The  defeated  candidate  consoled  himself  with  another 
lengthy  speech,  in  which  he  fiercely  assailed  the  Corpora- 
tion and  poured  the  vials  of  his  wrath  on  all  his  enemies. 
He  ended,  according  to  his  opponents,  with  the  words, 
4  The  Whigs  have  cast  me  off  and  they  shall  repent  it ' ; 
but  in  a  letter  to  The  Times1  Disraeli  repudiated  this 
version. 

Whatever  may  be  the  disposition  of  the  Whigs  to  me 
they  never  could  have  cast  me  off  since  I  never  had  the 

i  Nov.  12, 1832. 


216  ENTRY  INTO  POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

slightest  connexion  with  them.  I  believe  that  the  phrase  I 
did  use,  and  I  am  sanctioned  in  my  recollection  by  every 
person  to  whom  I  have  applied,  was  the  following :  — '  The 
Whigs  have  opposed  me,  not  I  them,  and  they  shall  repent  it.' 
I  am  in  no  wise  ashamed  of  this  observation  and  I  adhere  to  it. 

The  defiant  note  in  the  hour  of  defeat  was  highly 
characteristic  ;  but  the  speech  very  nearly  involved  him 
in  a  duel.  As  he  flung  his  gibes  and  sarcasms  right  and 
left  he  pointed  to  Lord  Nugent J  and  retorting  to  the 
charge  that  he  himself  was  a  Tory  in  disguise  declared 
that  the  nearest  thing  to  a  Tory  in  disguise  was  a  Whig 
in  office.  Lord  Nugent  construed  these  words  as  a  per- 
sonal affront  and  sent  a  challenge  ;  but  when  the  seconds 
met  they  agreed  that  the  affair  was  absurd  and  arranged 
for  such  an  interchange  of  explanations  as  averted  a 
meeting.2 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

[LONDON,] 

July  5. 

Giovanni8  called  on  me  (announced  by  the  servant  as 
Don  Giovanni).  He  has  left  Clay  and  brought  me  a  lock  of 
Byron's  hair  from  Venice,  which  he  cut  himself  off  the  corpse 
at  Missolonghi.  I  have  been  very  idle,  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  former  exertion,  but  shall  soon  buckle  to  among 
our  beeches. 

Aug.  4. 

Town  is  fast  emptying.  I  have  been  lately  at  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  one  night  had  a  long  conversation  with  my 
late  antagonist  and  present  representative.  We  are  more  than 
friendly. 

Aug.  8. 

On  Friday  I  shall  pitch  my  tent  in  the  green  retreats  of 
Bradenham,  and  Bulwer  accompanies  me.  He  wants  absolute 
retirement,  really,  to  write,  and  all  that.  He  is  to  do  what 
he  likes,  and  wander  about  the  woods  like  a  madman.  I 

1  Younger  brother  of  the  first  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  author  of 
those  Memorials  of  Hampden  which  gave  occasion  for  one  of  Macaulay's 
Essays. 

2  Lord  Ebrington  acted  as  Lord  Nugent's  second  and  Captain  Anger- 
stein  of  the  Grenadier  Guards  as  Disraeli's.    A  notice  containing  the 
explanations  agreed  upon  and  signed  by  them  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Bucks 
Gazette  for  July  7,  1832. 

8  See  above,  p.  157. 


1832]  FIRST  POLITICAL   PROGRAMME  217 

am   anxious   that   he   and   my   father   should  become   better 
acquainted.     Our  sire  never  had  a  warmer  votary.     . 
I  saw  Tita  to-day,  who  suggests  that  he  shall  return  with  me 
to  Bradenham,  and  try  our  place.1 

The  general  election  could  not  long  be  delayed,  and  the 
campaign  at  Wy combe  proceeded  almost  without  inter- 
mission. The  unreformed  Parliament  was  not  actually 
dissolved  till  December  3,  but  on  October  1  Disraeli 
issued  a  fresh  address  which  is  interesting  as  the  first 
full  and  authentic  exposition  of  his  political  opinions  that 
has  survived  the  chances  of  time.  He  comes  forward 
again  'wearing  the  badge  of  no  party  and  the  livery 
of  no  faction.'  He  is  'prepared  to  support  that  ballot 
which  will  preserve  us  from  that  unprincipled  system 
of  terrorism  with  which  it  would  seem  we  are  threatened 
even  in  this  town.'  He  is  '  desirous  of  recurring  to  those 
old  English  triennial  Parliaments  of  which  the  Whigs 
originally  deprived  us  ;  and  by  repealing  the  taxes  upon 
knowledge  '  he  '  would  throw  the  education  of  the  people 
into  the  hands  of  the  philosophic  student,  instead  of  the 
ignorant  adventurer.'  He  is  already  occupied  with  that 
great  question  of  the  condition  of  the  people  in  which  he 
took  an  abiding  interest. 

While  I  shall  feel  it  my  duty  to  enforce  on  all  opportunities 
the  most  rigid  economy,  and  the  most  severe  retrenchment, 
to  destroy  every  useless  place  and  every  undeserving  office, 
and  to  effect  the  greatest  reduction  of  taxation  consistent 
with  the  maintenance  of  the  public  faith  and  the  real  efficiency 
of  the  Government,  I  shall  withhold  my  support  from  every 
Ministry  which  will  not  originate  some  great  measure  to 
ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  lower  orders  —  to  rouse  the 
dormant  energies  of  the  country,  to  liberate  our  shackled 
industry,  and  reinstate  our  expiring  credit. 

With  regard  to  the  Corn  Laws, 

I  will  support  any  change  the  basis  of  which  is  to  relieve 
the  customer  without  injuring  the  farmer ;  and  for  the  Church 
I  am  desirous  of  seeing  effected  some  commutation  which, 
while  it  prevents  the  tithe  from  acting  as  a  tax  on  industry 
and  enterprise,  will  again  render  the  clergy  what  I  am  always 

1  Letters,  p.  77. 


218  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

desirous  of  seeing  them,  fairly  remunerated,  because  they  are 
valuable  and  efficient  labourers,  and  influential,  because  they 
are  beloved. 

And  then  in  a  fine  rhetorical  conclusion  he  appeals  for 
support  in  his  struggle. 

Against  that  rapacious,  tyrannical,  and  incapable  faction, 
who,  having  knavishly  obtained  power  by  false  pretences, 
sillily  suppose  that  they  will  be  permitted  to  retain  it  by 
half  measures,  and  who,  in  the  course  of  their  brief  but 
disastrous  career,  have  contrived  to  shake  every  great  interest 
of  the  Empire  to  its  centre.  Ireland  in  rebellion,  the  colonies 
in  convulsion,  our  foreign  relations  in  a  state  of  such  in- 
extricable confusion,  that  we  are  told  that  war  alone  can 
sever  the  Gordian  knot  of  complicated  blunders ;  the  farmer 
in  doubt,  the  shipowner  in  despair,  our  merchants  without 
trade,  and  our  manufacturers  without  markets,  the  revenue 
declining,  and  the  army  increased,  the  wealthy  hoarding 
their  useless  capital,  and  pauperism  prostrate  in  our  once- 
contented  cottages.  Englishmen,  behold  the  unparalleled 
Empire  raised  by  the  heroic  energies  of  your  fathers  ;  rouse 
yourselves  in  this  hour  of  doubt  and  danger ;  rid  yourselves 
of  all  that  political  jargon  and  factious  slang  of  Whig  and 
Tory — two  names  with  one  meaning,  used  only  to  delude 
you  —  and  unite  in  forming  a  great  national  party  which  can 
alone  save  the  country  from  impending  destruction. 

At  a  dinner  given  to  him  by  his  supporters  in  the 
course  of  the  campaign  he  elaborated  his  programme, 
leaning  on  this  occasion  somewhat  more  towards  the 
Tory  side  of  the  argument,  probably  because  there  were 
a  good  many  Tories  among  his  hosts  and  audience  as 
certainly  there  was  a  Tory  in  the  chair.  He  is  still, 
indeed,  defiantly  independent.  'I  care  not  for  party. 
I  stand  here  without  party.  I  plead  the  cause  of  the 
people,  and  I  care  not  whose  policy  I  arraign':  but 
he  rejoices  that  '  the  Tories  have  joined  the  popular 
party '  in  that  town,  and  it  is  now  that,  for  the  first  time, 
we  are  taken  back  to  the  principles  of  primitive  Toryism 
and  introduced  to  'Sir  William  Wyndham  and  my 
Lord  Bolingbroke,'  of  whom  we  shall  hear  a  good  deal  in 
future.  A  Whig  organ  had  denounced  Disraeli  as  '  a 


1832]  A   CAMPAIGN   SPEECH  219 

destructive  Radical.'  A  few  short  months  ago,  he 
retorted,  they  had  described  him  as  'a  disappointed 
Tory  candidate.'  '  I  need  scarcely  say  to  you  that  I 
have  undergone  no  change.  I  am  as  I  ever  was  in  motive, 
principle,  and  determination.'  In  advocating  triennial 
Parliaments  he  was  only  supporting  '  the  true  principles, 
the  just  spirit  of  our  admirable  constitution.'  They 
had  been  advocated  by  the  Tory  Party  in  '  the  most 
laudable  period  of  its  career,'  —  by  Sir  William  Wyndham 
'in  a  speech  which  for  sound  argument,  keen  research, 
close  reasoning,  and  bitter  invective,  is,  I  think,  un- 
equalled,' and  by  Lord  Bolingbroke,  '  one  of  the  ablest 
men  who  ever  lived'  :  and  he  was  not  ashamed  to  be 
'as  great  and  as  destructive  a  Radical  as  Sir  William 
Wyndham  and  my  Lord  Bolingbroke.'  The  ballot 
again  was  decidedly  a  Conservative  measure,  and  he 
supported  it  as  much  against  the  passions  of  the  many 
as  the  prejudices  of  the  few.  He  was,  in  fact,  *  a  Con- 
servative to  preserve  all  that  is  good  in  our  constitution, 
a  Radical  to  remove  all  that  is  bad.'  As  the  people  had 
been  invested  with  power,  he  wished  to  see  them  fitted 
for  its  exercise ;  therefore,  he  wished  to  see  the  taxes 
on  knowledge  repealed  and  the  Press  really  free.  In  the 
matter  of  foreign  affairs  '  he  shewed  how  the  policy  of 
the  present  Administration  must  lead  to  an  ultimate 
loss  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas,  the  destruction  of  our 
commerce,  and  finally  of  our  country.  Peace  is  now 
the  policy  of  England.  We  have  gained  everything: 
now  it  is  our  duty  to  preserve.'  He  was  a  sincere  friend 
of  the  slave  population,  but  he  was  not  'one  of  those 
precious  politicians  who  wish  to  deliver  the  Colonies  of 
England  to  the  United  States  of  America.'  Finally,  Free 
Trade  was  a  theory  which  'as  a  theory  he  much  admired,' 
but  a  word  of  warning  was  necessary  as  to  its  practical 
application. 

I  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  if  we  have  recourse 
to  any  sudden  alteration  of  the  present  system,  we 
may  say  farewell  to  the  county  of  Bucks,  farewell 


220  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

to  the  beautiful  Chilterns.  .  .  .  You  will  ask  is 
bread,  then,  always  to  be  dear?  By  no  means,  but  it  is 
surely  better  to  have  dear  bread  than  to  have  no  bread 
at  all.  Reduce  the  burdens  that  so  heavily  press  upon  the 
farmer,  and  then  reduce  his  protection  in  the  same  ratio. 
That  is  the  way  to  have  cheap  bread.  I  do  not  doubt  that 
when  the  question  of  tithes  is  eventually  settled,  when  the 
poor  laws  are  brought  back  to  the  system  of  1795,  and  when 
we  employ  our  surplus  revenue  in  relieving  the  agricultural 
interest  instead  of  sending  forth  fantastic  expeditions  to 
attack  our  ancient  allies  —  I  do  not  doubt  that  then  we  may 
have  the  blessing  of  cheap  bread  without  destroying  the  inter- 
est which  is  the  basis  of  all  sound  social  happiness.1 

'If  I  gain  my  election  I  think  I  have  doubled  the 
Cape  of  my  destiny,'  Disraeli  wrote  to  Evans,  his  old 
comrade  of  the  solicitor's  office.  He  was  not  to  gain 
his  election.  The  Whigs  put  forth  all  their  efforts  to 
defeat  him,  and  on  the  hustings  he  angrily  declared  that 
'  the  secret  of  their  enmity  was  that  he  was  not  nobly 
born.'  When  the  poll  closed  on  Dec.  12,  the  figures 
were  — 

Smith,  179. 

Grey,  140. 

Disraeli,  119. 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

Sunday. 

Had  my  agent  attended  to  our  registration,  which  for 
various  reasons  he  did  not,  I  should  have  succeeded  at 
Wycombe,  as  upwards  of  18  ratted  from  Grey,  but  the  rates 
of  many  of  my  old  supporters  were  pot  paid  up.  The  election, 
or  rather  contest,  did  not  cost  me  £80,  the  expense  of 
hustings,  &c.,  and  Grey  not  short  of  £800.  Had  I  let  money 
fly  I  should  have  come  in.  I  make  no  doubt  of  success  another 
time. 

Beaten  at  Wycombe,  he  on  the  same  day  issued  an 
address  to  the  electors  of  the  county. 

1  This  speech  is  preserved  in  the  Wycombe  Sentinel  (Nov.  30),  a 
weekly  publication,  of  which  eight  numbers  were  issued  gratis  by  the 
Disraeli  party  during  the  campaign.  There  is  also  a  report  in  the  Sucks 
Herald  of  Dec.  1. 


1832]  A  RETROSPECTIVE   VIEW  221 

I  come  forward  as  the  supporter  of  that  great  interest 
which  is  the  only  solid  basis  of  the  social  fabric,  and,  con- 
vinced that  the  sound  prosperity  of  this  country  depends 
upon  the  protected  industry  of  the  farmer,  I  would  resist 
that  spirit  of  rash  and  experimental  legislation  which  is  fast 
hurrying  this  once  glorious  Empire  to  the  agony  of  civil  con- 
vulsion. 

Lord  Chandos 1  was  the  only  Tory  in  the  field,  opposed 
to  two  Reformers;  but  when  Disraeli  arrived  at  Ayles- 
bury  on  the  day  after  the  issue  of  his  address  he  found 
that  he  had  been  anticipated,  and  he  at  once  withdrew 
his  own  pretensions,  and  appeared  on  the  hustings  as 
a  supporter  of  the  second  Tory  candidate.  The  incident 
marked  a  distinct  advance  towards  formal  alliance  with 
the  Tory  Party.  As  the  hostile  Journal  put  it,  having  been 
beaten  at  Wycombe  as  a  Tory  Radical  he  endeavoured 
to  come  forward  for  the  County  as  a  Radical  Tory. 


To  the  Rev.  Alfred  Beaven. 

HUGHENDEN   MANOR, 

Jan.  17, 1874. 

On  the  loss  of  my  election  in  1832  I  started  for  the  County, 
and  issued  my  address  on  the  same  day  that  Mr.  Scott  Murray, 
unknown  to  me,  agreed  to  become  a  candidate.  I  acted 
throughout  the  Wycombe  election  and  on  this  occasion 
entirely  with  the  approval  and  under  the  advice  of  Lord 
Chandos,  then  one  of  the  principal  leaders  of  the  Tory  party. 
We  felt  it  would  not  do  for  me  to  stand  in  the  way  of  Mr. 
Scott  Murray,  a  gentleman  of  large  estate.  He  was  an  amiable 
man,  totally  unfit  to  be  a  County  candidate  in  those  stormy 
days,  and  lost  his  election,  which  seemed  difficult,  as  there 
was  no  doubt,  from  the  enthusiasm  of  the  farmers  in  my 
favour,  I  should  have  been  returned  by  five  or  six  hundred 
majority. 

Though  it  is  now  a  mere  point  of  historical  curiosity,  I 
must  observe,  that  I  advocated  the  ballot  in  1832  because 
it  was  part  of  the  Tory  scheme  of  a  century  before ;  and  for 
the  same  reason,  as  it  was  suggested  by  Sir  W.  Wyndham, 
and  particularly  Sir  John  Hinde  Cotton,  almost  as  distin- 
guished a  leader  of  the  Country  party,  in  the  days  of  the 

1  Afterwards  second  Duke  of  Buckingham. 


222  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

first  Georges.  It  seemed  to  me,  that  the  Borough  constitu- 
ency,of  Lord  Grey  was  essentially,  and  purposely,  a  dissenting 
and  low  Whig  constituency,  consisting  of  the  principal  em- 
ployers of  labour  —  and  that  the  ballot  was  the  only  instru- 
ment to  extricate  us  from  these  difficulties.  .  .  . 

Political  history  is  not  sufficiently  known  now,  but  when 
I  started  in  life,  it  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say,  that  the  mind 
of  the  country,  even  in  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  was  a  com- 
plete blank  upon  it.  The  Tory  party  had  lost  all  their  tradi- 
tions, and  this  led  to  their  fall :  to  the  mess  they  made  about 
the  Roman  Catholics,  and  Parliamentary  Reform.  I  have, 
for  forty  years,  been  labouring  to  replace  the  Tory  party  in 
their  natural  and  historical  position  in  this  country.  I  am 
in  the  sunset  of  life,  but  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing  my  purpose 
effected. 


To  General  The  Hon.   CJiarles  Grey.1 

10,  DOWNINO-STREET,   WHITEHALL, 

Nov.  30,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  GENERAL, 

I  reciprocate  all  your  feelings,  and  shall  cherish  your 
friendship,  which  I  highly  esteem.  Your  conduct  to  me, 
during  my  tenure  of  Office,  has  been  admirable,  and  in  quitting 
my  post,  it  is  a  consolation  to  me  to  knovr  that  Her  Majesty 
has  near  her  a  gentleman  in  whose  abilities,  experience, 
judgment,  honor,  and  devotion  she  may  place  implicit  re- 
liance. 

Let  me  know  when  Her  Majesty  would  wish  to  receive  me 
to-morrow ;  and  believe  me, 

Yours  sincerely, 

B.   DISRAELI. 


Meanwhile  during  those  autumn  months  at  Bradenham, 
in  the  intervals  of  electioneering,  Alroy  had  been  com- 
pleted ;  and  early  in  the  new  year  Disraeli  was  at  Bath 
writing  The  Tale  of  Jskander. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

BATH, 

Jan.  19,  1833. 

Bulwer  and  I  arrived  here  on  Monday,  and  have  found  the 
change  very  beneficial  and  refreshing.  Such  is  the  power  of 

1  His  antagonist  at  Wycombe. 


1833]  IXION  223 

novelty,  that  the  four  or  five  days  seem  an  age.  .  .  We  are 
great  lions  here,  as  you  may  imagine,  but  have  not  been  any- 
where, though  we  have  received  several  invitations,  preferring 
the  relaxation  of  our  own  society,  and  smoking  Latakia,  which 
as  a  source  of  amusement,  I  suppose,  will  last  a  week.  I  like 
Bath  very  much.  Bulwer  and  I  went  in  late  to  one  public 
ball,  and  got  quite  mobbed. 

LONDON, 
Jan.  29. 

I  dined  with  Bulwer  en  famille  on  Sunday,  'to  meet  some 
truffles '  —  very  agreeable  company.  His  mother-in-law, 
Mrs.  Wheeler,  was  there ;  not  so  pleasant,  something  between 
Jeremy  Bentham  and  Meg  Merrilies,  very  clever,  but  awfully 
revolutionary.  She  poured  forth  all  her  systems  upon  my 
novitiate  ear,  and  while  she  advocated  the  rights  of  woman, 
Bulwer  abused  system-mongers  and  the  sex,  and  Rosina 
played  with  her  dog. 

Feb.  7. 

Went  to  the  House  of  Commons  to  hear  Bulwer  adjourn 
the  House :  was  there  yesterday  during  the  whole  debate  — 
one  of  the  finest  we  have  had  for  years.  Bulwer  spoke,  but 
he  is  physically  disqualified  for  an  orator;  and,  in  spite  of 
all  his  exertions,  never  can  succeed.  He  was  heard  with  great 
attention,  and  is  evidently  backed  by  a  party.  Heard 
Macaulay's  best  speech,  Sheil  and  Charles  Grant.  Macaulay 
admirable ;  but,  between  ourselves,  I  could  floor  them  all. 
This  entre  nous ;  I  was  never  more  confident  of  anything  than 
that  I  could  carry  everything  before  me  in  that  House.  The 
time  will  come.  .  .  .  Grey  spoke  highly  of  my  oratorical 
powers  to  Bulwer,  said  he  never  heard  'finer  command  of 
words.'  Ixion  is  thought  the  best  thing  I  ever  wrote.1 

Ixion  in  Heaven  was  one  of  several  short  pieces  which 
he  contributed  about  this  time  to  the  New  Monthly,  a 
magazine  owned  by  Colburn,  of  which  Bulwer  was  the 
editor.  A  companion  piece  The  Infernal  Marriage  was 
published  in  the  following  year.  Light,  satirical  dialogues 
conceived  in  the  manner  of  Lucian,  they  are  reminiscences, 
as  has  been  noted  before,  of  Disraeli's  schoolboy  admira- 
tion for  that  author,  though  they  surpass  even  Lucian  in 
the  audacity  of  their  persiflage.  There  was  an  element 

1  Letters,  pp.  79,  80. 


224:  ENTRY  INTO  POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

of  sheer  irreverence  in  Disraeli  strangely  mingled  as 
in  Heine  with  the  more  obvious  characteristics  of 
the  Semitic  temperament  —  a  spirit  of  revolutionary 
mockery  ever  struggling  in  both  with  the  mysticism  of 
the  Hebrew,  so  that  they  both  of  them  appear  to  be 
the  most  impossible  compounds  of  Spinoza  and  Voltaire ; 
and  nowhere  has  Disraeli  given  more  perfect  expression 
to  this  side  of  his  complex  nature  than  in  these  dialogues, 
because  nowhere  else  is  its  expression  so  genial  and  in- 
offensive. His  father  thought  them  the  most  original 
of  all  his  writings  ;  and  more  than  one  critic  since,  charmed 
by  their  wit  and  vivacity  and  sparkle,  their  entire  freedom 
from  malice,  and  the  spirit  of  innocent  mischief  which 
breathes  through  them,  has  repeated  the  contemporary 
judgment,  and  pronounced  them  to  be  the  best  things 
that  their  author  ever  wrote. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

April  8. 

I  have  agreed  to  stand  for  Marylebone,  but  I  shall  not  go 
to  the  poll  unless  I  am  certain,  or  very  confident ;  there  is 
even  a  chance  of  my  not  being  opposed.  In  the  Town  yester- 
day, I  am  told,  *  some  one  asked  Disraeli,  in  offering  himself 
for  Marylebone,  on  what  he  intended  to  stand.  "  On  my 
head,"  was  the  reply.' 

I  have  heard  nothing  more  from ,  who  appears 

to  have  pocketed  more  than  I  should  like  to  do.  It  was 
impossible  to  pass  over  attacks  from  such  a  quarter  in  silence. 
The  only  way  to  secure  future  ease  is  to  take  up  a  proper 
position  early  in  life,  and  show  that  you  will  not  be  insulted 
with  impunity.1 

The  allusion  in  this  passage  is  to  a  correspondence 
with  Dashwood,  the  Whig  member  for  Bucks,  who  in 
a  speech  at  Wycombe  had  elaborately  depicted  a  type 
of  political  profligacy  in  language  that  had  been  inter- 
preted as  applying  to  the  late  candidate  for  the  borough. 
More  perhaps  in  a  spirit  of  calculation  than  out  of  real 
sensitiveness  or  irritability  Disraeli  was  in  these  years 

1  Letters,  p.  82. 


1833]  CANDIDATE   FOR  MARYLEBONE  225 

something  of  a  fire-eater,  ready  to  fly  out  at  every  fancied 
insult ;  in  marked  contrast  to  his  contemptuous  dis- 
regard in  later  days  of  the  shower  of  venomous  abuse 
that  unceasingly  descended  on  him.  He  succeeded 
on  this  occasion  in  intimidating  his  critic,  but  at  the 
expense  of  alarming  his  family. 

The  candidature  for  Marylebone  began  and  ended  with 
the  issue  of  an  address.  Appealing  to  an  urban  constitu- 
ency, Disraeli  stands  forth  again  as  a  militant  democrat, 
the  comparative  Toryism  of  his  views  on  Church  and 
land  fading  into  the  background.  '  Supported  by  neither 
of  the  aristocratic  parties,'  he  appears  before  the  electors 
4  as  an  independent  member  of  society  who  has  no  interest, 
either  direct  or  indirect,  in  corruption  or  misgovernment, 
and  as  one  of  a  family  untainted  by  the  receipt  of  public 
money.'  He  asks  for  their  votes  'as  a  man  who  has 
already  fought  the  battle  of  the  people  and  as  one  who 
believes  that  the  only  foundation  on  which  a  beneficent 
and  vigorous  government  can  now  be  raised  is  an  un- 
limited confidence  in  the  genius  of  the  British  nation.' 
And  then  he  repeats  the  principal  items  of  his  Wy- 
combe  programme ;  triennial  Parliaments,  election  by 
ballot,  the  repeal  of  the  taxes  on  knowledge,  reduc- 
tion of  the  public  burdens,  and  the  elevation  of  the 
moral  and  improvement  of  the  physical  condition  of  the 
people. 

The  vacancy  did  not  occur,  and  Disraeli  had  recourse 
to  his  pen  in  order  to  explain  and,  at  the  same  time, 
draw  attention  to  his  somewhat  anomalous  political 
position.  A  short  pamphlet  presently  appeared  entitled 
' "  What  is  He  ? "  By  the  author  of  Vivian  Grey  ' ; 
the  title  finding  its  explanation  in  the  legend  beneath  it  — 
4 "  I  hear  that  *  *  *  *  is  again  in  the  field ;  I  hardly 
know  whether  we  ought  to  wish  him  success.  '  What  is 
he ? '"  —  Extract  from  a  letter  of  an  Eminent  Personage? 
The  'Eminent  Personage'  was  supposed  to  be  Lord 
Grey,  the  Prime  Minister,  but  he  is  just  as  likely  to  have 
been  a  figment  of  Disraeli's  imagination.  The  pamphlet 

VOL.   I  —  Q 


226  ENTRY   INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

is  an  argument  in  favour  of  a  National  Party  and  an 
explanation  of  the  principles  on  which  it  should  be 
founded. 

The  Tories  have  announced  [it  begins]  that  they  could 
not  carry  on  the  government  of  this  country  with  the  present 
state  machinery ;  every  day  the  nation  is  more  sensible  that 
the  Whigs  cannot.  .  .  .  The  first  object  of  a  statesman 
is  a  strong  Government,  without  which,  there  can  be  no 
security.  .  .  .  By  what  means  are  we  to  obtain  a  strong 
Government  ?  We  must  discover  some  principles  on  which 
it  can  be  founded.  We  must  either  revert  to  the  aristocratic 
principle,  or  we  must  advance  to  the  democratic.  .  .  .  The 
moment  the  Lords  passed  the  Reform  Bill,  from  menace 
instead  of  conviction,  the  aristocratic  principle  of  govern- 
ment in  this  country,  in  my  opinion,  expired  for  ever.  From 
that  moment,  it  became  the  duty  of  every  person  of  property, 
talents,  and  education,  unconnected  with  the  unhappy  party 
at  present  in  power,  to  use  his  utmost  exertions  to  advance 
the  democratic  principle,  in  order  that  the  country  should  not 
fall  into  that  situation,  in  which,  if  I  mistake  not,  it  will 
speedily  find  itself  —  absolutely  without  any  Government 
whatever. 

A  Tory  and  a  Eadical,  I  understand;  a  Whig  —  a  demo- 
cratic aristocrat,  I  cannot  comprehend.  If  the  Tories  indeed 
despair  of  restoring  the  aristocratic  principle,  and  are  sincere 
in  their  avowal  that  the  State  cannot  be  governed  with  the 
present  machinery,  it  is  their  duty  to  coalesce  with  the  Radi- 
cals, and  permit  both  political  nicknames  to  merge  in  the 
common,  the  intelligible,  and  the  dignified  title  of  a  National 
Party.  He  is  a  mean-spirited  wretch  who  is  restrained  from 
doing  his  duty  by  the  fear  of  being  held  up  as  insincere  and 
inconsistent  by  those  who  are  incapable  of  forming  an  opinion 
on  public  affairs.  ...  A  great  mind,  that  thinks  and  feels, 
is  never  inconsistent  and  never  insincere.  .  .  .  The  in- 
sincere and  the  inconsistent  are  the  stupid  and  the  vile.  In- 
sincerity is  the  vice  of  a  fool  and  inconsistency  the  blunder  of 
a  knave. 

What  then  in  practice  are  '  the  easiest  and  most  obvious 
methods  by  which  the  democratic  principle  may  be  made 
predominant '  ?  The  answer,  it  must  be  confessed,  is 
somewhat  disappointing.  They  are,  we  are  told,  'the 
instant  repeal  of  the  Septennial  Act,  the  institution  of 
Election  by  Ballot,  and  the  immediate  dissolution  of  Par- 


1833]  WHAT  IS  HE?  227 

liament.'  We  feel  at  once  that  the  current  of  thought 
has  lost  itself  in  the  shallows  of  formula,  and  we  hasten 
on  with  some  impatience  to  the  much-quoted  passage 
which  brings  the  tract  to  an  eloquent  conclusion. 

It  is  wise  to  be  sanguine  in  public  as  well  as  in  private  life ; 
yet  the  sagacious  statesman  must  view  the  present  portents 
with  anxiety,  if  not  with  terror.  It  would  sometimes  appear 
that  the  loss  of  our  great  Colonial  Empire  must  be  the 
necessary  consequence  of  our  prolonged  domestic  dissensions. 
Hope,  however,  lingers  to  the  last.  In  the  sedate  but 
vigorous  character  of  the  British  nation,  we  may  place  great 
confidence.  Let  us  not  forget  also  an  influence  too  much 
underrated  in  this  age  of  bustling  mediocrity  —  the  influence 
of  individual  character.  Great  spirits  may  yet  arise 
to  guide  the  groaning  helm  through  the  world  of  troubled 
waters;  spirits  whose  proud  destiny  it  may  still  be  at  the 
same  time  to  maintain  the  glory  of  the  Empire  and  to  secure 
the  happiness  of  the  People  ! 

*  Who  will  be  the  proud  spirit  ?  *  was  Isaac  D 'Israeli's 
pointed  query  when  he  read  the  pamphlet;  but  his  son 
vouchsafed  no  answer.  The  whole  performance  is  a 
characteristically  Disraelian  blend  of  eloquence  and 
bathos,  of  sincerity  and  pose,  of  insight  and  fantasy. 

April  30,  1833. 

There  is  an  attack  in  the  Morning  Herald  on  What  is  He  ? 
where  the  author  is  advised  to  adhere  to  the  region  of  romance. 
Such  attacks  are  not  very  disagreeable,  for  you  have  no  idea  of 
the  success  of  the  pamphlet,  which  is  as  much  a  favourite 
with  the  Tories  as  the  Bads.  The  recent  expose  of  the  Whigs 
proves  me  a  prophet.1 

In  spite  of  this  complacent  view  the  world  was  as  far 
as  ever  from  an  answer  to  the  question  which  supplied  a 
title  to  the  pamphlet.  A  year  had  now  elapsed  since 
Disraeli's  first  appearance  on  the  stage  of  practical  politics, 
and  he  had  done  little  more  than  win  for  himself  the 
reputation  of  a  political  adventurer  with  unintelligible 
opinions.  As  he  became  more  famous,  controversy  began 

1  Letters,  p.  82. 


228  ENTRY  INTO   POLITICS  [CHAP,  xi 

to  rage  around  the  details  of  these  first  campaigns  and  it 
has  never  wholly  died  away  ;  pamphleteering  biographers 
striving  with  one  another  —  some  eager  to  prove  that  he 
was  a  consistent  Tory  from  the  beginning,  others  no  less 
eager  to  convict  him  as  an  unscrupulous  time-server, 
careless  of  everything  but  his  own  advancement.  The 
outlines  of  the  truth  will  now  begin  to  be  apparent. 
Disraeli  in  1832  was  impatiently  eager  to  get  into 
Parliament ;  but  his  opinions  were  the  opinions  of  a  man 
in  complete  isolation  from  the  ordinary  schools  of  political 
thought  and  he  was  almost  cynically  indifferent  to  the 
conventions  of  party  allegiance.  Experience  soon  taught 
him  that  this  indifference  could  not  be  maintained  ;  he 
learnt  in  due  course  to  pay  the  necessary  tribute  to 
convention,  and  as  time  went  on  he  acquired  some  of  the 
freedom  which  is  the  privilege  of  greatness.  But  in  these 
early  days  his  extreme  detachment  in  the  matter  of 
opinion  and  allegiance  was  ascribed  by  the  multitude  of 
humdrum  politicians  to  absence  of  political  convictions. 
That  he  was  without  political  convictions,  however,  was 
the  exact  opposite  of  the  truth.  He  was  a  man  over- 
burdened with  political  convictions,  not  yet  fully 
elaborated  or  harmonised  into  a  system,  but  dear  to  him 
as  the  product  of  original  and  independent  thought.  If 
he  had  been  content  to  wear  the  livery  of  either  party  he 
could  with  half  the  energy  and  ability  he  showed  have 
speedily  forced  his  way  into  Parliament.  But  it  was  not 
in  his  nature  to  accept  a  political  creed  or  programme 
ready  made  or  to  stifle  the  instinct  of  criticism  which  was 
so  strong  within  him.  He  was  a  political  free-thinker 
at  the  beginning  of  his  career  as  he  remained  a  political 
free-thinker  to  the  end. 

Born  in  a  library  and  trained  from  early  childhood  by 
learned  men  who  did  not  share  the  passions  and  the  prejudices 
of  our  political  and  social  life,  I  had  imbibed  on  some  subjects 
conclusions  different  from  those  which  generally  prevail,  and 
especially  with  reference  to  the  history  of  our  own  country. 
How  an  oligarchy  had  been  substituted  for  a  kingdom,  and  a 


1833]  POLITICAL   ISOLATION  229 

narrow-minded  and  bigoted  fanaticism  flourished  in  the  name 
of  religious  liberty,  were  problems  long  to  me  insoluble,  but 
which  early  interested  me.  But  what  most  attracted  my 
musing,  even  as  a  boy,  was  the  elements  of  our  political 
parties,  and  the  strange  mystification  by  which  that  which 
was  national  in  its  constitution  had  become  odious,  and  that 
which  was  exclusive  was  presented  as  popular.1 

We  are  not  bound  to  suppose  that  the  Disraeli  of  1832 
would  have  set  forth  his  difficulties  in  the  precise  manner 
in  which  the  Disraeli  of  1870  set  them  forth  in  retrospect : 
the  language  of  the  foregoing  extract  is  the  language  of 
his  finished  political  creed,  of  the  Vindication  or  of 
Coningsby ;  but  even  in  1832  all  the  elements  of  his 
finished  political  creed  can  already  be  detected.  His 
faith,  in  democracy  on  the  one  hand,  his  reverence  for 
tradition  and  our  traditional  institutions  on  the  other ; 
his  dislike  of  the  selfish  Whig  oligarchy ;  his  desire  to 
secure  a  modification  of  the  Corn  Laws,  but  without  the 
sacrifice  of  agriculture;  his  interest  in  the  condition  of  the 
people,  and  that,  too,  at  a  time  when  the  subject  had  not 
become  fashionable;  these  are  all  to  be  found  in  the 
speeches  and  writings  of  Disraeli's  first  year  in  politics 
precisely  as  they  run  through  his  subsequent  political 
life.  If  we  study  his  first  campaigns  in  the  light  of  what 
followed,  putting  aside  party  prepossessions  and  ignoring 
party  labels,  what  they  demonstrate  is  not  any  tendency  to 
mental  fickleness  in  the  man,  but  an  amazing  continuity, 
not  to  say  rigidity,  of  thought  in  the  principles  which 
underlie  his  whole  political  career.  We  need  never  look 
in  Disraeli  for  the  self-conscious  consistency  of  the  moral 
precisian ;  but  there  is  no  lack  of  the  far  deeper  consist- 
ency which  has  its  roots  in  a  highly  original  mind,  in  a 
strong  intellectual  grasp  of  certain  cardinal  ideas,  in  a 
temperament  of  marked  idiosyncrasy,  and  in  a  character 
of  exceptional  persistence. 

1  General  Preface  to  the  Novels,  1870. 


CHAPTER   XII 

LIFE  IN  LONDON 
1833-1834 

In  Endymion  we  are  shown  the  contrast  between  the 
social  world  of  London  as  Disraeli  first  knew  it  in  his 
youth  and  the  same  world  as  he  saw  it  half  a  century- 
later. 

The  great  world  then,  compared  with  the  huge  society 
of  the  present  period,  was  limited  in  its  proportions,  and 
composed  of  elements  more  refined  though  far  less  various. 
There  were  then,  perhaps,  more  great  houses  open 
than  at  the  present  day,  but  there  were  very  few  little  ones. 
The  necessity  of  providing  regular  occasions  for  the  assembling 
of  the  miscellaneous  world  of  fashion  led  to  the  institution 
of  Almack's,  which  died  out  in  the  advent  of  the  new  system 
of  society,  and  in  the  fierce  competition  of  its  ^inexhaustible 
private  entertainments.  The  season  then  was  brilliant 
and  sustained,  but  it  was  not  flurried.  People  did  not  go  to 
various  parties  on  the  same  night.  They  remained  where 
they  were  assembled,  and,  not  being  in  a  hurry,  were  more 
agreeable  than  they  are  at  the  present  day.  Conversation 
was  more  cultivated;  manners,  though  unconstrained,  were 
more  stately ;  and  the  world,  being  limited,  knew  itself  much 
better.1 

On  his  return  from  the  East  Disraeli  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  at  once  found  admission  to  a  society  which  if  not 
the  highest  stood  in  close  relationship  to  the  highest 
—  a  curious  blend  of  literature,  fashion,  politics,  and 

1  Endymion,  ch.  5. 
230 


1833]  THE  SHERIDAN  FAMILY  231 

bohemianism ;  and  here  and  in  even  more  Olympian 
circles  he  made  rapid  headway  from  the  first.  He  had 
all  the  qualities  that  enable  a  man  to  shine  in  such  an 
atmosphere  :  he  was  by  instinct  a  social  artist,  as  his 
earliest  novels  prove  ;  in  those  days  dandyism  was  in 
fashion,  and  he  was  a  dandy  by  nature,  practice,  and 
conviction  ;  he  was  '  at  that  time  a  very  handsome  young 
man,  with  a  countenance  in  which  beauty  of  feature 
and  intellectual  expression  were  strikingly  combined'1; 
and  he  could  when  he  liked  be  so  brilliant  in  conversation 
as  to  extort  admiring  testimony  even  from  unsympathetic 
listeners. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Feb.  21,  1833. 

Yesterday  I  dined  with  the  Nortons;  it  was  her  eldest 
brother's  birthday,  who,  she  says,  is  'the  only  respectable 
one  of  the  family,  and  that  is  because  he  has  a  liver  complaint.' 
There  were  there  her  brother  Charles  and  old  Charles 
Sheridan,  the  uncle,  and  others.  The  only  lady  beside  Mrs. 
Norton,  her  sister  Mrs.  Blackwood,2  also  very  handsome 
and  very  Sheridanic.  She  told  me  she  was  nothing.  'You 
see  Georgy's  the  beauty,  and  Carry's  the  wit,  and  I  ought 
to  be  the  good  one,  but  then  I  am  not.'  I  must  say  I  liked 
her  exceedingly ;  besides,  she  knows  all  my  works  by  heart, 
and  spouts  whole  pages  of  '  V.  G.'  and  '  C.  F.'  and  the  '  Y.  D.' 
In  the  evening  came  the  beauty,  Lady  St.  Maur,  and  any- 
thing so  splendid  I  never  gazed  upon.  Even  the  handsomest 
family  in  the  world,  which  I  think  the  Sheridans  are,  all 
looked  dull.  Clusters  of  the  darkest  hair,  the  most  brilliant 
complexion,  a  contour  of  face  perfectly  ideal.  In  the 
evening  Mrs.  Norton  sang  and  acted,  and  did  everything 
that  was  delightful.  Ossulston  came  in  —  a  very  fine  singer, 
unaffected  and  good-looking.  Old  Mrs.  Sheridan  —  who,  by 
the  bye,  is  young  and  pretty,  and  authoress  of  Carwett  —  is 
my  greatest  admirer ;  in  fact,  the  whole  family  have  a  very 
proper  idea  of  my  merits  !  and  I  like  them  all.8 

Many  years  later  Lady  Dufferin  gave  a  description  of 
the  appearance  presented  at  this  dinner  party  by  her 

1  Sir  Henry  Layard  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  Jan.,  1889. 

2  Afterwards  Lady  Dufferin.  8  Letters,  p.  80. 


232  LIFE   IN   LONDON  [CHAP.  XH 

sister's  fantastic  guest.  He  wore,  she  said,  'a  black 
velvet  coat  lined  with  satin,  purple  trousers  with  a  gold 
band  running  down  the  outside  seam,  a  scarlet  waistcoat, 
long  lace  ruffles,  falling  down  to  the  tips  of  his  fingers, 
white  gloves  with  several  brilliant  rings  outside  them, 
and  long  black  ringlets  rippling  down  upon  his  shoulders.' 1 
Lady  Dufferin  protested  that  there  was  not  the  slightest 
exaggeration  in  this  picture  ;  but  we  may  at  least  suspect 
or  hope  that  time  had  not  deprived  it  of  any  of  its  colour. 
It  may  have  been  to  the  same  occasion  that  she  referred 
in  a  well-known  anecdote. 


He  was  once  dining  with  my  insufferable  brother-in-law, 
Mr.  Norton,  when  the  host  begged  him  to  drink  a  particular 
kind  of  wine,  saying  he  had  never  tasted  anything  so  good 
before.  Disraeli  agreed  that  the  wine  was  very  good.  '  Well,' 
said  Norton,  'I  have  got  wine  twenty  times  as  good  in  my 
cellar.'  '  No  doubt,  no  doubt,'  said  Disraeli,  looking  round 
the  table ;  '  but,  my  dear  fellow, .  this  is  quite  good  enough 
for  such  canaille  as  you  have  got  to-day.' 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

April  25, 1833. 

I  have  done  nothing  but  go  to  the  play  lately,  one  night 
with  Mrs.  Norton  to  see  Sheridan  Knowles's  new  play,  which 
was  successful.  Public  amusements  are  tedious,  but  in  a 
private  box  with  a  fair  companion  less  so. 


May  22. 

There    was   a  review   in  Hyde  Park,  and  the  Wyndham 
Lewis's  gave  a  dejeuner,  to  which  I  went.     By  the  bye,  would 

you  like  Lady  Z for  a  sister-in-law,  very  clever,  £25,000 

and  domestic?  As  for  'love,'  all  my  friends  who  married 
for  love  and  beauty  either  beat  their  wives  or  live  apart  from 
them.  This  is  literally  the  case.  I  may  commit  many 
follies  in  life,  but  I  never  intend  to  marry  for  'love,'  which  I 
am  sure  is  a  guarantee  of  infelicity.2 

1  Motley's  Correspondence,  I.,  p.  264. 

2  Letters,  p.  82. 


1833]  THOUGHTS   OF  MAKRIAGE  233 

The  meeting  with  this  lady  was  at  the  Opera,  and  an 
entry  in  her  diary  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  Disraeli  in  the 
company  of  a  clever  and  romantic  girl. 

The  younger  Disraeli  was  in  the  box.  He  and  I  soon  got 
acquainted.  He  is  wild,  enthusiastic,  and  very  poetical. 
He  told  me  he  thought  Southey  the  greatest  man  of  the  age ; 
he  was  really  a  great  man,  he  said.  .  .  .  The  brilliancy 
of  my  companion  infected  me,  and  we  ran  on  about  poetry 
and  Venice  and  Baghdad  and  Damascus.  He  tells  me  that 
repose  is  the  great  thing  and  that  nothing  repays  exertion. 
Yet  noise  and  light  are  his  fondest  dreams,  and  nothing  could 
compensate  him  for  an  obscure  youth  —  not  even  glorious  old 
age.  It  was  beautiful  to  hear  him  talk  of  Southey. 

The  girl  was  herself  a  great  admirer  of  Southey's,  but 
her  companion's  enthusiasm,  we  may  suspect,  began 
and  ended  in  that  opera  box.  'Lady  Z.'  presently 
found  a  less  poetical  husband,  and  nearly  fifty  years 
later  Disraeli  had  the  satisfaction  of  recommending  her 
son  for  a  peerage.  Marriage  at  this  time  was  a  good  deal 
in  his  thoughts,  and  in  the  letters  from  Bradenham  there 
are  frequent  allusions  to  a  matrimonial  scheme  to  which, 
though  probably  having  its  origin  less  in  his  own  feelings 
than  in  the  wishes  of  his  family,  he  seems  seriously  for 
a  time  to  have  given  his  attention.  The  lady  was  a 
sister  of  his  lost  friend  Meredith,  but  whether  through 
her  own  reluctance  or  her  suitor's  lack  of  zeal  the  project 
came  to  nothing. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

June  29. 

My  table  is  literally  covered  with  invitations,  and  some 
from  people  I  do  not  know.  I  dined  yesterday  with  the  St. 
Maurs,  to  meet  Mrs.  Sheridan.  An  agreeable  party:  the 
other  guests,  Lady  Westmorland,  very  clever;  Mrs.  Black- 
wood,  Lord  Clements,  and  Brinsley.  Lord  St.  Maur,  great 
talent,  which  develops  itself  in  a  domestic  circle,  though 
otherwise  shy-mannered.  In  the  evening  a  good  soiree  at 
Lady  Charleville's.  I  met  Lady  Aldboro',  but  the  lion  of 
the  evening  was  Lucien  Bonaparte,  the  Prince  of  Canino.  I 
went  to  the  Caledonian  Ball  after  all,  in  a  dress  from  my 


234  LIFE  IN  LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

Oriental  collection.  Particulars  when  we  meet.  Yesterday, 
at  Mrs.  Wyndham's,  I  met  Joseph  Bonaparte  and  his  beautiful 
daughter. 

July  20. 

I  am  putting  my  house  in  order  and  preparing  for  a  six 
months'  sojourn  and  solitude  amid  the  groves  of  Bradenham. 
.  .  .  London  is  emptying  fast,  but  gay.  Lady  Cork1  had 
two  routs.  'All  my  best  people,  no  blues.'  At  a  concert 
at  Mrs.  Mitford's  I  was  introduced  to  Malibran,  who  is  to  be 
the  heroine  of  my  opera.  She  is  a  very  interesting  person. 

Aug.  4. 

My  letters  are  shorter  than  Napoleon's,  but  I  love  you 
more  than  he  did  Josephine.  I  shall  be  down  to-inorrow.2 

'I  wish,'  wrote  his  father  on  some  occasion,  'that 
your  organization  allowed  you  to  write  calmer  letters, 
and  that  you  could  sober  yourself  down  to  a  diary  before 
you  went  to  bed.'  To  a  diary  in  the  ordinary  sense 
Disraeli  never  did  succeed  in  sobering  himself  down, 
but  in  these  quiet  autumn  months  at  Bradenham  he  began 
a  document  which  has  unfortunately  not  escaped  the 
ravages  of  time  and  is  known  to  those  who  have  engaged 
in  the  exploration  of  his  papers  as  the  '  Mutilated 
Diary.' 

Sept.  I,  1833. 

I  have  passed  the  whole  of  this  year  in  uninterrupted 
lounging  and  pleasure  —  with  the  exception  of  offering  myself 
for  Marylebone  and  writing  a  pamphlet,  but  the  expected 
vacancy,  thank  God,  did  not  occur :  and  one  incident  has 
indeed  made  this  year  the  happiest  of  my  life.  How  long 
will  these  feelings  last  ?  They  have  stood  a  great  test,  and 
now  absence,  perhaps  the  most  fatal  of  all.  My  life  has  not 
been  a  happy  one.  Nature  has  given  me  an  awful  ambition 

1  Mary  Countess  of  Cork  (1746-1840),  widow  of  the  7th  Earl,  who 
died  in  1798.     Before  her  marriage  she  was  the  Miss  Monckton  whom  we 
meet  in  Boswell ;  whose  '  vivacity  enchanted  the  sage  '  ;  and  whom  John- 
son crushed  in  argument  with  the  retort,  'Dearest,  you're  a  dunce,'  add- 
ing, when  she  reproached  him  afterwards,  '  Madam,  if  I  had  thought  so, 
I  certainly  should  not  have  said  it.'     She  was  a  lion-hunter  all  her  life  and, 
beside  the  members  of  Johnson's  circle,  had  known  the  Prince  Regent, 
Castlereagh,  Canning,  Byron,  Scott,  and  a  hundred  other  celebrities.     We 
shall  find  her  appearing  in  Henrietta  Temple  as  Lady  Bellair. 

2  Letters,  pp.  83-S4. 


1833]  MUTILATED   DIARY  235 

and  fiery  passions.  My  life  has  been  a  struggle,  with  moments 
of  rapture  —  a  storm  with  dashes  of  moonlight  —  Love,  Poetry 

************ 

*****  achieve  the  difficult  undertaking. 
With  fair  health  I  have  no  doubt  of  success,  but  the  result 
will  probably  be  fatal  to  my  life. 

My  disposition  is  now  indolent.  I  wish  to  be  idle  and 
enjoy  myself,  muse  over  the  stormy  past  and  smile  at  the 
placid  present.  My  career  will  probably  be  more  energetic 
than  ever,  and  the  world  will  wonder  at  my  ambition.  Alas ! 
I  struggle  from  Pride.  Yes !  It  is  Pride  that  now  prompts 
me,  not  Ambition.  They  shall  not  say  I  have  failed.  It 
is  not  Love  that  makes  me  say  this.  I  remember  expressing 
this  feeling  to  Bulwer  as  we  were  returning  from  Bath  together, 
a  man  who  was  at  that  moment  an  M.P.,  and  an  active  one, 
editing  a  political  journal  and  writing  at  the  same  time  a 
novel  and  a  profound  and  admirable  philosophical  work. 
He  turned  round  and  pressed  my  arm  and  said  in  a  tone 
the  sincerity  of  which  could  not  be  doubted:  'It  is  true, 
my  dear  fellow,  it  is  true.  We  are  sacrificing  our  youth, 
the  time  of  pleasure,  the  bright  season  of  enjoyment  —  but 
we  are  bound  to  go  on,  we  are  bound.  How  our  enemies  would 
triumph  were  we  to  retire  from  the  stage!  And  yet,'  he 
continued  in  a  solemn  voice,  'I  have  more  than  once  been 
tempted  to  throw  it  all  up,  and  quit  even  my  country,  for  ever.' 

All  men  of  high  imagination  are  indolent. 

I  have  not  gained  much  in  conversation  with  men.  Bulwer 
is  one  of  the  few  with  whom  my  intellect  comes  into  collision 
with  benefit.  He  is  full  of  thought,  and  views  at  once  origi- 
nal and  just.  The  material  of  his  conversation  and  many  a 
hint  from  our  colloquies  he  has  poured  into  his  England  and 
the  English,  a  fine  series  of  philosophic  dissertations.  Lock- 
hart  is  good  for  te'te-a-te'tes,  if  he  like  you,  which  he  did  me 
once.  His  mind  is  full  of  literature,  but  no  great  power 
of  thought.  He  is  an  overrated  man.  But  the  man  from 
whom  I  have  gained  most  in  conversation  is  Botta,1  the 
son  of  the  Italian  historian,  whom  I  knew  in  Egypt,  travelling 
as  a  physician  in  the  Syrian  dress  —  the  most  philosophic 
mind  that  I  ever  came  in  contact  with.  Hour  after  hour 
has  glided  away,  while,  chibouque  in  mouth,  we  have  disserted 
together  upon  our  divan,  in  a  country  where  there  are  no 
journals  and  no  books.  My  mind  made  a  jump  in  these  high 
discourses.  Botta  was  wont  to  say  that  they  formed  also 

1  Paul  Emile  Botta,  1806-1870.  He  was  afterwards  French  Consul 
at  Mosul,  and  shares  with  Layard  the  honour  of  founding  Assyrian 
archaeology. 


236  LIFE  IN  LONDON  [CHAP.  XH 

an  era  in  his  intellectual  life.  If  I  add  to  these  my  father, 
the  list  comprises  the  few  men  from  whose  conversation  I 
have  gained  wisdom.  I  make  it  a  rule  now  never  to  throw 
myself  open  to  men.  I  do  not  grudge  them  the  knowledge 
I  could  impart,  but  I  am  always  exhausted  by  composition 
when  I  enter  society,  and  little  inclined  to  talk,  and  as  I 
never  get  anything  in  return,  I  do  not  think  the  exertion 
necessary.  In  the  conversation  of  society  the  most  brilliant 
men  I  know  are  perhaps  Spencer  (now  in  Paris)  and  Tom 
Moore.  As  a  lively  companion,  of  ceaseless  entertainment 
and  fun,  no  one  perhaps  equals  Charles  Mathews,  the  son 
of  the  comedian,  but  far  excelling  his  father,  who  is,  I  un- 
derstand, jealous  of  him.  James  Smith,  though  gouty,  will 
nevertheless  not  easily  find  a  rival  as  a  diseur  des  bons  mots. 
I  met  him  at  General  Phipps's  this  year,  and  he  divided 
mankind  into  those  who  walked  to  get  an  appetite  for  their 
dinner  and  those  who  walked  to  get  a  dinner  for  their  appe- 
tite. Jeemes  Smith,  as  the  good  old  General  (who,  by  the  bye, 
gives  as  pleasant  little  dinners  as  anybody  in  town)  ever  calls 
him.  'General,'  says  Lady  Cork,  'when  am  I  to  dine  with 
you?'  'Name  your  day  and  your  party,  Lady  Cork.'  'Well 
then,  the  20th,  and  you  may  ask  whom  you  like  —  only  not 
Jeemes  Smith  or  Jekyll,  I  am  tired  of  them.' 

But  I  am  not  Lady  Cork,  and  was  very  much  amused  with 
Jeemes.  Jekyll  has  his  faculties,  but  is  deaf,  like  Lady 
Aldboro'.  I  cannot  bear  deaf  people.  I  feel  for  them  so 
much,  and  I  never  can  repeat  what  I  say,  not  even  to  Princes. 

The  world  calls  me  conceited.  The  world  is  in  error.  I 
trace  all  the  blunders  of  my  life  to  sacrificing  my  own  opinion 
to  that  of  others.  When  I  was  considered  very  conceited 
indeed  I  was  nervous  and  had  self-confidence  only  by  fits. 
I  intend  in  future  to  act  entirely  from  my  own  impulse.  I 
have  an  unerring  instinct  —  I  can  read  characters  at  a  glance; 
few  men  can  deceive  me.  My  mind  is  a  continental  mind. 
It  is  a  revolutionary  mind.  I  am  only  truly  great  in  action. 
If  ever  I  am  placed  in  a  truly  eminent  position  I  shall  prove 
this.  I  could  rule  the  House  of  Commons,  although  there 
would  be  a  great  prejudice  against  me  at  first.  It  is  the 
most  jealous  assembly  in  the  world.  The  fixed  character 
of  our  English  society,  the  consequence  of  our  aristocratic 
institutions,  renders  a  career  difficult.  Poetry  is  the  safety- 
valve  of  my  passions,  but  I  wish  to  act  what  I  write.  My 
works  are  the  embodification  of  my  feelings.  In  Vivian  Grey 
I  have  portrayed  my  active  and  real  ambition.  In  Alroy  my 
ideal  ambition.  The  Psychological  Romance  is  a  development 
of  my  poetic  character.  This  trilogy  is  the  secret  history  of 
my  feelings.  I  shall  write  no  more  about  myself. 


1833]  POETIC   ASPIRATIONS  237 

The  Utilitarians  in  politics  are  like  the  Unitarians  in 
religion;  both  omit  imagination  in  their  systems,  and  imag- 
ination governs  mankind. 

Oct.  21. 
Seven  weeks  !  and  not  a  line  in  my  book. 

These  strange  rhapsodies  show  that  Disraeli's  mind 
was  in  a  state  of  unusual  exaltation  and  excitement, 
and  prepare  us  for  that  which  followed.  In  the  course 
of  the  autumn  months  at  Bradenham  he  embarked  on 
a  literary  venture  which  is  one  of  the  most  curious 
enterprises  of  an  enterprising  life.  The  habit  of  verse- 
making,  apart  from  any  genuine  poetic  impulse,  was 
more  in  fashion  among  the  educated  in  those  days  than 
now ;  Isaac  D'Israeli  was  much  addicted  to  it,  and  his 
son  hardly  less,  in  spite  of  his  discovery  proclaimed  in 
Contarini,  and  repeated  in  Alroy,  that  the  age  of  versifica- 
tion was  past.  Full  of  a  vague  consciousness  of  power, 
which  had  hardly  yet  been  directed  into  definite  channels, 
he  was  now  seized,  as  he  wrote  to  Austen,  by  '  an  un- 
conquerable desire  of  producing  something  great  and 
lasting,'  and  he  seems  to  have  indulged  for  a  moment 
in  the  dream  that  he  might  become  a  supreme  poet.  He 
had  achieved  already  no  small  reputation  as  a  writer 
of  prose  fiction  ;  in  imagination,  at  all  events,  he  had 
scaled  the  steepest  heights  of  political  ambition  ;  and 
turning  his  thoughts  to  poetry  he  characteristically 
aimed  at  the  highest.  Let  him  tell  the  tale  himself. 

It  was  in  the  plains  of  Troy  that  I  first  conceived  the  idea 
of  this  work.  Wandering  over  that  illustrious  scene,  sur- 
rounded by  the  tombs  of  heroes  and  by  the  confluence  of 
poetic  streams,  my  musing  thoughts  clustered  round  the 
memory  of  that  immortal  song,  to  which  all  creeds  and 
countries  alike  respond,  which  has  vanquished  Chance,  and 
defies  Time.  Deeming  myself,  perchance  too  rashly,  in  that 
excited  hour  a  Poet,  I  cursed  the  destiny  that  had  placed 
me  in  an  age  that  boasted  of  being  anti-poetical.  And  while 
^lf— jFancy  thus  struggled  with  my  Reason,  it  flashed  across 
mind,  like  the  lightning  which  was  then  playing  over 
^Iiat  in  those  great  poems  which  rise,  the  pyramids  of 


238  LIFE  IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

poetic  art,  amid  the  falling  and  the  fading  splendour  of  less 
creations,  the  Poet  hath  ever  embodied  the  spirit  of  his  Time. 
Thus  the  most  heroick  incident  of  an  heroick  age  produced 
in  the  Iliad  an  Heroick  Epick ;  thus  the  consolidation  of  the 
most  superb  of  Empires  produced  in  the  Aeneid  a  Political 
Epick;  the  revival  of  learning  and  the  birth  of  vernacular 
genius  presented  us  in  the  Divine  Comedy  with  a  National 
Epick;  and  the  Reformation  and  its  consequences  called 
from  the  rapt  lyre  of  Milton  a  Religious  Epick. 

And  the  spirit  of  my  time,  shall  it  alone  be  uncelebrated  ? 

Standing  upon  Asia,  and  gazing  upon  Europe,  with  the 
broad  Hellespont  alone  between  us,  and  the  shadow  of  night 
descending  on  the  mountains,  these  mighty  continents 
appeared  to  me,  as  it  were,  the  rival  principles  of  government 
that,  at  present,  contend  for  the  mastery  of  the  world. 
'  What ! '  I  exclaimed,  '  is  the  revolution  of  France  a  less 
important  event  than  the  siege  of  Troy  ?  Is  Napoleon  a  less 
interesting  character  than  Achilles  ?  For  me  remains  the 
Revolutionary  Epick.'1 

To  the  development  of  this  great  conception  he  now 
accordingly  applied  himself.  *  I  live  here  like  a  hermit,' 
he  writes  to  Mrs.  Austen  from  Bradenham,  'and  have 
scarcely  seen  my  family.  I  rise  at  seven,  and  my  day 
passes  in  study  and  composition.'  A  little  later  he  is 
at  Southend,  staying  '  at  an  old  grange  with  gable  ends 
and  antique  windows,'  '  living  solely  on  snipes  and  riding 
a  good  deal,'  but  still  'passing  his  days  in  constant 
composition.'  By  tbe  beginning  of  December  he  is  far 
enough  advanced  to  set  forth  his  argument. 

To  Mrs.  Austen. 

Dec.  1, 1833. 

Since  the  revolt  of  America  a  new  principle  has  been  at 
work  in  the  world  to  which  I  trace  all  that  occurs.  This  is 
the  Revolutionary  principle,  and  this  is  what  I  wish  to  embody 
in  the  Revolutionary  Epick.  I  imagine  the  Genius  of  Feudalism 
and  the  Genius  of  Federalism  appearing  before  the  Almighty 
Throne  and  pleading  their  respective  and  antagonistic  causes. 
The  pleading  of  the  Feudal  Genius,  in  which  I  say  all  that  can 
be  urged  in  favour  of  the  aristocratic  system  of  society,  forms 

1  Preface  to  the  Revolutionary  Epick. 


1834]  REVOLUTIONARY   EPICK  239 

the  first  book :  the  pleading  of  the  Federal,  the  second :  the 
decree  of  the  Omnipotent  is  mystical.  It  declares  that  a  man 
is  born  of  supernatural  energies  and  that  whichever  side  he 
embraces  will  succeed,  or  to  that  effect.  The  man  is  Napoleon 
just  about  to  conquer  Italy.  The  spirits  descend  to  earth  to 
join  him.  He  adopts  the  Federal  or  Democratic  side.  The 
Feudal  stirs  up  the  Kings  against  him.  Hence  my  machinery  ! 
The  next  two  books  contain  the  conquest  of  Italy,  very  little 
vulgar  fighting  but  highly  idealised.  This  is  all —  about  4,000 
lines  —  that  I  shall  now  venture  to  print;  the  whole  of  it  is 
matured  in  my  mind,  though  probably  it  could  not  be  com- 
pleted under  30,000  lines.  What  do  you  think  of  it?  The 
conception  seems  to  me  sublime.  All  depends  on  the  execu- 
tion. I  have  finished  the  three  first  books.  The  two  first 
cost  me  much  the  most  trouble ;  the  rest  is  play  work. 

Mrs.  Austen  was  still  his  literary  Egeria.  '  You  appear,' 
he  tells  her,  '  to  be  the  only  person  in  the  world  except 
myself  who  have  any  energy.  What  would  I  give  to 
have  you  always  at  my  right  hand  ?  '  When  he  wants  a 
description  of  Josephine  he  appeals  to  her.  '  Are  you 
sure  that  a  Creole  is  dark  ?  No  matter,  I  will  make  her 
brunette.  ...  I  was  introduced  to  the  King  of 
Spain  and  the  Prince  of  Canino  (Lucien)  last  year,  but 
do  not  like  to  write  to  them.'  Or  again, 

I  have  got  a  grand  simile  about  a  S.  Wester,  I  think  they 
call  it :  and  am  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  geography  of  the  wind 
and  have  no  atlas  here.  I  mean  that  wind  that  blows,  I  think, 
about  the  Cape  and  knocks  the  Honourable  Company's  ships 
about.  Daniel  has  a  famous  picture  about  it,  consisting  of 
one  ship  and  one  wave.  Is  it  a  S.  Wester  that  I  mean,  and 
whence  does  it  blow,  and  all  about  it  ?  Get  it  up  for  the  16th. 

On  the  16th  of  January  he  was  to  dine  with  the  Austens, 
and  he  promised  to  put  a  canto  of  his  work  in  his  bag  and 
if  they  were  alone  *  to  perform  the  part  of  the  Impor- 
tunate Author  and  bore  them  with  a  grand  recitation.' 
They  were  not  alone,  but  the  grand  recitation  was  given 
all  the  same.  '  There  was  something  irresistibly  comic,' 
writes  an  eye-witness 1  of  the  scene  that  followed,  '  in  the 
young  man  dressed  in  the  fantastic,  coxcombical  costume 
1  Sir  Henry  Layard  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  January,  1889. 


240  LIFE   IN  LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

that  he  then  affected  —  velvet  coat  of  an  original  cut 
thrown  wide  open,  and  ruffles  to  its  sleeves,  shirt  collars 
turned  down  in  Byronic  fashion,  an  elaborately  em- 
broidered waistcoat  whence  issued  voluminous  folds  of 
frill,  and  shoes  adorned  with  red  rosettes  —  his  black  hair 
pomatumed  and  elaborately  curled,  and  his  person  redo- 
lent with  perfume  —  announcing  himself  as  the  Homer 
or  Dante  of  the  age.'  Thus  arrayed,  and  standing  with 
his  back  to  the  fire,  our  poet  unfolded  in  grandiloquent 
language  his  great  conception  ;  and  he  then  declaimed 
in  pretentious  tones  the  whole  of  his  first  canto.  But 
unfortunately  for  the  effect  produced  he  had  no  sooner  left 
the  room  than  Samuel  Warren,1  who  was  present,  recited 
in  perfect  mimicry  of  style  and  voice  and  manner  a  number 
of  heroic  verses  improvised  for  the  occasion  ;  and  the 
company,  which  had  no  doubt  been  hovering  between 
admiration  and  amusement,  hardly  knowing  whether  to 
regard  the  poem  as  a  work  of  genius  or  of  coxcombry, 
settled  the  question  at  once  by  going  into  fits  of  laughter. 

The  Epick  was  published  in  the  spring  of  1834,  the  first 
book  separately  in  March,  the  second  and  third  together 
in  June.  '  My  poem  turns  out  a  terrible  labor,'  he  wrote 
to  Austen  on  the  eve  of  publication,  but  presently  added 
with  some  complacency :  — 

I  have  executed  the  work  to  my  satisfaction  and,  what  is  of 
more  importance,  to  the  satisfaction  of  my  father,  a  critic 
difficult  to  please.  I  await  the  great  result  with  composure, 
though  I  am  not  sanguine  of  pleasing  the  million.  I  feel  that 
I  have  now  done  enough  for  my  reputation  and  that  I  am  at 
length  justified  in  merely  looking  to  my  purse. 

The  preface  showed  more  becoming  diffidence  :  — 

I  have  ventured  to  submit  to  the  public  but  a  small  portion 
of  my  creation,  and  even  that  with  unaffected  distrust  and 
sincere  humility.  Whatever  may  be  their  decision  I  shall 
bow  to  it  without  a  murmur ;  for  I  am  not  one  who  find  con- 
solation for  the  neglect  of  my  contemporaries  in  the  imaginary 

1  Author  of  Ten  Thousand  a  Year. 


1834]  FAILURE   OF   THE   POEM  241 

plaudits  of  a  more  sympathetic  posterity.  The  public  will 
then  decide  whether  this  work  is  to  be  continued  and  com- 
pleted ;  and  if  it  pass  in  the  negative,  I  shall,  without  a  pang, 
hurl  my  lyre  to  Limbo. 

The  reading  public  gave  the  would-be  successor  of 
Homer,  Virgil,  Dante,  and  Milton  no  encouragement, 
and  with  or  without  a  pang  he  accordingly  '  hurled  his 
lyre  to  Limbo '  ;  though  not,  it  would  seem,  at  once. 
Thirty  years  later,  when  the  poem  had  long  been  buried, 
the  stress  of  political  controversy  brought  it  to  the  light 
again.  In  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  1864 
Disraeli  had  occasion  to  denounce  certain  well-known 
opinions  of  Mazzini's ;  whereupon  Mr.  Bright  retorted  that 
if  what  he  had  somewhere  read  was  true  Disraeli  himself 
in  one  of  his  earlier  works  had  propounded  doctrines  not 
dissimilar  in  tendency.  The  statement  was  at  once 
denied  and  the  denial  accepted  :  but  some  lines  of 
swelling  rhetoric  were  subsequently  quoted  in  the  news- 
papers from  the  Revolutionary  Epick  and  eagerly  repeated 
to  prove  that  in  his  youth  the  Conservative  leader  had 
advocated  regicide.  Disraeli  might  very  well  have 
followed  his  usual  practice  and  laughed  at  the  charge, 
the  more  so  as  the  lines  in  question,1  occurring  in  the  rival 
pleadings  before  the  throne  of  Demogorgon,  could  no 
more  be  held  with  justice  to  incriminate  the  author 
than  Milton  could  be  held  responsible  for  every  sentiment 

1  They  have  a  double  dramatic  shelter  in  their  place  in  the 
poem,  being  quoted  by  Lyridon  as  the  utterance  of  the  maiden 
Opinion.  In  the  original  edition  the  passage  runs :  — 

Pharaoh's  doom 

Shall  cool  those  chariot  wheels  now  wet  with  blood, 
And  blessed  be  the  hand  that  dares  to  wave 
The  regicidal  steel  that  shall  redeem 
A  nation's  sorrow  with  a  tyrant's  blood. 

In  the  edition  of  1864  this  became 

Dark  Pharaoh's  doom 

Shall  cool  your  chariot  wheels,  and  hallowed  be 
The  regicidal  steel  that  shall  redeem 
A  nation's  woe. 

—  Bk.  II.  sect.  22. 


242  LIFE   IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

of  the  fallen  spirits  in  the  debate  in  Paradise  Lost:  but 
he  chose  instead  to  make  the  incident  the  occasion  for 
a  new  edition  of  the  poem  with  substantial  variations 
from  the  original,  and  in  a  dedicatory  address  to  Lord 
Stanley  prefixed  to  this  edition  he  thus  explained  the 
variations  :  — 

The  Revolutionary  EpicJc  is  printed  from  the  only  copy  in 
my  possession,  and  which,  with  slight  exceptions,  was  corrected 
in  1837,  when,  after  three  years'  reflection,  I  had  resolved  not 
only  to  correct  but  to  complete  the  work.  The  corrections 
are  purely  literary.  The  somewhat  sudden  accession  of  her 
Most  Gracious  Majesty  occasioned  in  that  year  a  dissolution 
of  Parliament,  and  being  then  returned  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  which  I  have  siuce  sat  without  an  interval, 
these  dreams  for  ever  vanished. 

No  one  who  has  read  Contarini  will  think  it  strange 
that  the  dreams  should  have  visited  him.  Disraeli 
was  indeed  something  of  a  poet,  though  his  proper  medium 
was  neither  the  prose  poetry  of  Alroy  nor  the  heroic 
verse  of  the  Revolutionary  Spick.  '  I  am  only  truly 
great  in  action  '  ;  when  he  wrote  that,  his  insight  into 
character  did  not  fail  him.  He  carried  into  the  field  of 
action  indeed  a  good  deal  of  the  spirit  of  the  poet 
and  the  artist,  but  action  was  his  true  province  all  the 
same.  For  supreme  greatness  in  the  field  of  creative 
literature  he  had  neither  the  self-restraint  nor  the  self- 
devotion  that  are  needed  ;  and  though  he  could  make 
verses,  he  had  none  of  the  peculiar  and  divine  gift  which 
gives  to  verses  the  quality  of  lasting  poetry.  No  one 
need  be  surprised  then  at  the  failure  of  the  Epick.  The 
conception,  if  not,  according  to  his  own  word,  sublime, 
has  a  certain  largeness  which  a  happier  execution  might 
have  raised  to  the  pitch  of  grandeur,  and  which  even  as 
it  is  gives  an  air  of  spaciousness  to  the  poem.  But  the 
execution,  on  which,  as  he  saw,  all  would  depend,  falls 
far  short  of  the  conception.  Disraeli's  verse  is  fluent, 
but  where  we  look  for  poetry  we  find  only  the  dull  and 
cloudy  rhetoric  into  which  a  man  invariably  falls  who 


1834]  VERSE   NOT   HIS  MEDIUM  243 

writes  poetry  not  because  he  must,  but  because  he  thinks 
it  a  fine  thing  to  do.  There  is  a  brave  pretence  of  poetic 
rapture,  but  rarely  any  gleam  of  genuine  inspiration  ; 
a  succession  of  brilliant  fancies  clothed  in  eloquent 
language,  image  piled  upon  image  with  gorgeous  though 
bewildering  prodigality  ;  but  nowhere  the  passionate 
thought  that  goes  direct  to  the  heart,  or  the  inevitable 
phrase  that  lingers  by  its  beauty  in  the  memory.  Where 
we  find  merit  in  the  verse  it  is  usually  a  merit  that  reflects 
the  writer's  studies  in  poetry  rather  than  his  own  native 
gift.  Take,  for  instance,  the  following  description  of 
Athens  from  the  second  book  :  — 

A  city  like  the  dream  of  youthful  bard, 
Reposing  in  the  shade  of  summer  trees, 
And  pressing  to  his  eyes  his  magic  hand, 
To  call  up  visions  of  a  fairer  world  : 
Blue  ocean,  bowery  plain,  and  azure  sky, 
And  marble  walls,  and  free-born  citadel, 
Glittering  with  snowy  columns  in  the  sun ; 
Statues  of  ivory,  tablets  like  the  blaze 
Of  the  far-flashing  twilight  of  the  land ; 
And  choral  theatres,  where  the  Poet's  voice 
Blends  with  the  whisper  of  the  delicate  air, 
The  messenger  of  nature  to  his  soul ; 
And  gardens  of  delight,  in  whose  green  glades 
And  fragrant  groves,  or  by  the  mossy  verge 
Of  sparkling  fountain  or  serener  stream, 
Conversing  Sages  teach  to  genial  youth 
Ennobling  precepts ;  to  be  wise  and  free, 
Refined  and  virtuous,  is  their  theme  sublime ; 
Or  for  the  high  and  passionate  hour  prepare, 
When  from  the  Bema's  all-subduing  throne 
A  voice  may  sway  the  fortunes  of  a  world ! 
Divine  Equality,  thou  art  a  God 
Omnipotent  indeed !     Thy  sacred  fire 
Burns  now  in  later  temples,  not  to  fall 
Like  thine  old  shrines  ;  yet  who  can  e'er  forget, 
Whose  soul  indeed  thy  noble  faith  inflames, 
Thy  broken  altar  on  Athena's  hill ! 

We  feel  at  once  that  our  poet  has  studied  his 
Milton  and  is  engaged  in  a  vain  endeavour  to  mimic 
him.  Original  as  was  his  genius,  Disraeli  was  always 


244  LIFE   IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

a  liberal  borrower,  both  from  others  and  himself  ;  and 
here,  whether  he  is  at  his  best  or  at  his  worst,  he  is 
invariably  imitative.  He  had  early  been  a  devoted  stu- 
dent of  Shelley,  and  if  the  diction  and  versification  of 
the  poem  are  feebly  reminiscent  of  Milton,  the  matter  and 
machinery,  and  often  even  the  sentiment,  are  still  more 
reminiscent  of  Shelley,  though  unfortunately  of  Shelley 
in  his  least  inspired  moments.  The  word  Demogorgon, 
which  meets  us  in  the  opening  lines,  recalls  Shelley  at 
once,  and  in  the  first  two  books  we  have  not  only  Demo- 
gorgon and  the  rival  genii  Magros  and  Lyridon,  but 
a  bewildering  mixture  of  subordinate  agents,  Faith  and 
Fealty,  Religion  and  Loyalty,  the  Monster  Change,  the 
beautiful  maiden  Opinion,  daughter  of  Physical  and 
Moral  Strength,  and  so  forth  —  all  vague  impersonations 
in  the  Shelleyan  manner,  but  not,  alas  !  the  manner  of 
Prometheus  or  Adonais. 

'  Standing  upon  Asia  and  gazing  upon  Europe, 
.  these  mighty  continents  appeared  to  me  as  it 
were  the  Rival  Principles  of  Government  that  at  present 
contend  for  the  mastery  of  the  world.'  What  is  still  of  pro- 
found interest  in  the  poem  to  the  student  of  Disraeli  is  the 
development  of  this  contention  between  Asia  and  Europe 
which  forms  its  essential  subject.  In  his  choice  of  the 
poetical  form  for  the  clothing  of  his  thoughts  there  was 
no  doubt  a  large  element  of  pose,  with  the  result  that  he 
produced  poetry  which  is  rhetorical,  imitative,  and,  in 
a  sense,  insincere.  But  in  his  choice  of  the  subject 
itself  there  was  no  insincerity.  The  conflict  between 
Asia  and  Europe  and  all  that  they  symbolise  ran  through 
Disraeli's  life,  as  it  runs  through  the  poem,  and  never 
wholly  found  an  issue  in  the  triumph  of  either  principle 
or  in  their  harmonious  reconcilement.  '  My  mind  is  a 
revolutionary  mind ' :  that  was  true,  and  perhaps  espe- 
cially true  when  it  was  written  and  when  the  Revolutionary 
Epick  was  conceived.  Disraeli  had  been  fascinated  by 
the  great  drama  in  which  the  modern  spirit  was  unfolding 
itself,  and  hence  we  get  in  the  Epick  the  triumph  of  the 


1834]  ASIA   AND   EUROPE  245 

*  Federal '  side  and  the  apotheosis  of  Napoleon.  The 
third  book  closes  with  Napoleon's  entry  into  Milan  ; 
but  if  the  poem  had  been  continued  one  wonders  how 
the  action  could  ever  have  been  brought  to  a  climax  or  to 
any  natural  conclusion.  It  is  safe  indeed  to  assume 
that  even  if  Disraeli  had  received  the  encouragement 
which  he  looked  for,  he  could  never  have  completed 
the  Epick ;  as  in  the  case  of  Vivian  G-rey  or  Oonta- 
rini  Fleming,  the  impulse  of  creation  must  before  long 
have  spent  itself  and  the  current  of  his  story  have 
lost  itself  in  shallows.  He  was  able  to  remain  at  ease 
with  his  revolutionary  theme  through  the  space  of  a  book 
or  more,  but  he  could  not  long  have  pursued  it  without 
acute  spiritual  discomfort.  Revolutionary  as  he  really 
was  on  one  side  of  his  complex  nature,  there  was  another 
side  which  is  exposed  in  the  first  book  of  the  Epick  and 
which  was  to  be  the  front  presented  to  the  world  in  his 
subsequent  career.  Reverence  for  the  past,  a  Semitic 
feeling  for  religion,  an  instinct  for  the  positive,  for  order, 
for  tradition,  for  everything  that  Carlyle  embodies  in  the 
phrase  '  the  everlasting  yea'  —  all  these  things  were  strong 
within  him,  and  it  was  in  their  development  and  expres- 
sion and  not  in  the  rdle  of  revolutionary  leader  that  his 
mission  really  lay.  Yet  to  the  end  the  revolutionary  side 
was  there ;  and  it  is  just  because  Disraeli  never  lost  his 
sympathy  with  the  modern  spirit,  never  felt  any  of  that 
timorous  shrinking  from  new  political  ideals  which  afflicts 
Conservatives  of  a  narrower  type,  that  his  Conservatism 
is  so  sane,  so  robust,  and  so  fruitful  ;  without  forgetting 
the  things  which  are  behind  he  is  always  found  reaching 
forth  unto  the  things  which  are  before. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

THE  GRANGE,  SOUTHEND, 

Thursday.     [Feb.  13,  1834.] 
MY  DEAR  CHILD, 

Although  I  have  only  half  a  sheet  in  my  desk,  you  shall  not 
be  a  loser  thereby.     I  continue  here  quite  alone,  my  only  com- 


246  LIFE   IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xir 

panion  little  Eva,  who  with  her  golden  locks  and  rosy  cheeks 
is  a  most  beautiful  child,  and  prattles  without  ceasing.  The 
Sykes  have  not  returned,  and  their  return  is  indefinite,  for  the 
Baronet  is  very  unwell,  and  confined  to  his  room. 

Solitude  at  this  moment  suits  me  very  well.  The  book  sur- 
passes all  my  hopes,  but  so  little  of  the  original  sketch  remains 
that  you  will  scarcely  recognise  it.  Assure  my  father  that  it 
is  not  now  at  all  like  Pye,  which  he  seemed  to  fear.  I  think 
of  dedicating  it  to  the  Duke  in  a  long  political  prose  ;  if  so,  I 
shall  request  his  permission ;  but  upon  this  dedication  I  have 
not  determined. 

Montagu  Gore  has  accepted  the  Chiltern  Hundreds,  and 
asked  me  to  stand  for  Devizes,  which  I  have  refused.  Any 
place  but  Parliament  at  present.  The  time  will,  however, 
come,  and  is  coming  speedily.  Gore,  according  to  his  address, 
resigns  for  two  reasons ;  his  health,  and  also  because  he  has 
recanted  and  turned  Tory!  His  health  and  head  seem  equally 
weak.  He  is  an  ass,  who  has  terminated  an  asinine  career 
with  a  very  characteristic  bray. 

I  hunted  the  other  day  with  Sir  Henry  Smythe's  hounds, 
and  although  not  in  scarlet  was  the  best  mounted  man  in  the 
field,  riding  Lady  Sykes's  Arabian  mare,  which  I  nearly  killed, 
a  run  of  30  miles,  and  I  stopped  at  nothing.  I  gained  great 
kudos.  The  only  Londoner  I  met  was  Henry  Manners  Sutton, 
who  had  come  over  to  cover  from  Mistley  Hall.  He  asked 
me  to  return  with  him,  but  as  Lady  Manners  was  not  there,  I 
saw  no  fun,  and  refused. 

Write  directly.     Love  to  all, 

Your  affectionate  D. 

I  told  you,  I  believe,  that  Mrs.  Norton  had  given  me  her 
portrait. 


From  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 

STBATHFIELDS  ATE  , 

March  7,  1834. 

SIB, 

I  am  really  much  flattered  by  your  desire  to  dedicate  to 
me  by  permission  your  Epic  Poem. 

Unfortunately  I  found  myself  under  the  necessity  twenty 
years  ago  of  determining  that  I  would  never  give  a  formal 
permission  that  any  work  should  be  dedicated  to  me.  I  will 
not  trouble  you  with  the  reasons  for  this  determination.  They 
were  founded  upon  a  sense  of  the  necessity  for  this  course, 
or  for  the  adoption  of  another  —  viz.,  that  I  should  peruse 


1834]  LADY   BLESSINGTON  247 

every  work  which  it  was  wished  that  I  should  give  per- 
mission that  it  should  be  dedicated  to  me,  before  I  should 
grant  the  required  permission.  This  last  alternative  was  im- 
practicable ;  and  I  have  found  myself  under  the  painful  ne- 
cessity in  many  instances,  as  in  this,  of  declining  to  give  such 
formal  permission. 

If,  however,  you  should  think  proper  to  dedicate  your  poem 
to  me  without  such  formal  permission,  you  are  at  full  liberty 
to  take  that  course ; l  assuring  you  at  the  same  time  that  I  feel 
greatly  flattered  by  the  expression  of  your  desire  that  I  should 
permit  it, 

I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir 

Your  most  obedient  humble  servant, 

WELLINGTON. 

The  Epick  off  his  mind,  Disraeli  plunged  with  renewed 
zest  into  the  dissipations  of  society. 

May,  1834. 

On  Monday  I  dined  with  Lady  Blessington  —  the  Prince  of 
Moskova,  Charles  Lafitte,  Lords  Castlereagh,  Elphinstone,  and 
Allen,  Mr.  Talbot,  myself;  and  Lord  Wilton  was  the  absent 
guest,  having  to  dine  with  the  King,  but  he  came  in  the  even- 
ing. He  is  very  handsome.  Hope's  ball  on  Monday  was  the 
finest  thing  this  year  —  supped  off  gold  and  danced  in  the 
sculpture  gallery.  To-day  is  the  Drawing-room ;  but  nobody 
thinks  of  anything  but  politics.  I  dine  with  O'Connell  on 
Saturday.2 

Disraeli,  as  has  been  seen,  had  met  Count  D'Orsay, 
*  the  famous  Parisian  dandy,'  at  a  reception  at  Bulwer's 
a  couple  of  years  before,  but  this  is  the  first  time  we  hear 
of  an  acquaintance  with  Lady  Blessington.  Still  in  the 
fullness  of  her  mature  beauty,  she  had  now  been  a  widow 
for  several  years,  and  her  house  in  Seamore  Place,  though 
shunned  by  the  great  ladies  of  society,  had  become  a  meet- 
ing ground  for  most  of  the  social,  literary,  and  political 
celebrities  of  the  day.  D'Orsay,  the  husband  of  her  step- 
daughter, had  succeeded  after  an  interval  to  the  empire 
of  Brummell  and  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  fame  as 
leader  of  the  dandies,  arbiter  of  fashion,  and  gambler 
and  spendthrift.  With  both  him  and  Lady  Blessington 
Disraeli  soon  formed  an  intimate  and  enduring  friendship. 

1  The  poem  appeared  without  a  dedication.  2  Letters,  p.  85. 


248  LIFE  IN  LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

June  4,  1834. 

I  was  at  Lady  Dudley  Stuart's  on  Sunday  —  a  pleasant 
circle  —  and.  made  the  acquaintance  of  Lord  Hertford.1  I  dine 
with  Lady  Cork  to-day,  to  meet  the  Mulgraves,  Tavistocks, 
and  Lincolns. 

June  16. 

I  made  Beckford's  acquaintance  at  the  Opera  on  Thursday. 
Conversation  of  three  hours  [he  adds  in  the  Mutilated  Diary] ; 
very  bitter  and  malin,  but  full  of  warm  feelings  for  the  worthy. 

I  dined  yesterday  with  Lady  Blessington,  and  Durham 
among  the  guests,  and  he  talked  to  me  nearly  the  whole  even- 
ing; afterwards  to  Lady  Salisbury's.2 

A  gossiping  American  journalist  was  one  of  the  guests 
at  this  last  dinner  and  wrote  an  account  of  it  in  his 
paper  a  few  years  later  when  Durham  had  crossed  the 
Atlantic  for  his  memorable  work  in  Canada. 

The  guests  dropped  in,  announced  but  unseen,  in  the  dim 
twilight,  and  when  Lord  Durham  came,  I  could  only  see  that 
he  was  of  middle  stature,  and  of  a  naturally  cold  address. 
Bulwer  spoke  to  him,  but  he  was  introduced  to  no  one  —  a 
departure  from  the  custom  of  that  maison  sans  g&ne,  which 
was  either  a  tribute  to  his  Lordship's  reserve  or  a  ruse  on  the 
part  of  Lady  Blessington  to  secure  to  Disraeli  the  advantage 
of  having  his  acquaintance  sought :  successful,  if  so,  for  Lord 
Durham  after  dinner  requested  a  formal  introduction  to  him. 
But  for  D'Orsay,  who  sparkles,  as  he  does  everything  else, 
out  of  rule,  and  in  splendid  defiance  of  others'  dullness,  the 
soup  and  first  half  hour  of  dinner  would  have  passed  off 
with  the  usual  English  fashion  of  earnest  silence. 
Bulwer  and  Disraeli  were  silent  altogether.  I  should  have 
foreboded  a  dull  dinner  if  in  the  open  brow,  and  clear  sunny 
eye,  and  unembarrassed  repose  of  the  beautiful  and  expressive 
mouth  of  Lady  Blessington  I  had  not  read  the  promise  of  a 
change. 

It  came  presently.  With  a  tact  of  which  the  subtle 
ease  and  grace  can  in  no  way  be  conveyed  into  descrip- 
tion, she  gathered  up  the  cobweb  threads  of  conversation 
going  on  at  different  parts  of  the  table,  and,  by  the  most 
apparent  accident,  flung  them  into  Disraeli's  fingers.  It  was 
an  appeal  to  his  opinion  on  a  subject  he  well  understood, 
and  he  burst  at  once,  without  preface,  into  that  fiery  vein  of 

1  The    '  Lord  Monmouth '  of   Coningsby  and  the  '  Lord  Steyne '  of 
Vanity  Fair. 
*  Letters,  p.  86. 


1834]  DISRAELI  AND   DURHAM  249 

eloquence  which,  hearing  many  times  after,  and  always 
with  new  delight,  has  stamped  Disraeli  in  my  mind  as  the 
most  wonderful  talker  I  have  ever  had  the  fortune  to  meet. 
He  is  anything  but  a  decl aimer.  You  would  never  think 
him  on  stilts.  If  he  catches  himself  in  a  rhetorical  sentence, 
he  mocks  at  it  in  the  next  breath.  He  is  satirical,  con- 
temptuous, pathetic,  humorous,  everything  in  a  moment. 
Add  to  this  that  Disraeli's  is  the  most  intellectual  face  in 
England  —  pale,  regular,  and  overshadowed  with  the  most 
luxuriant  masses  of  raven-black  hair,  and  you  will  scarce 
wonder  that  meeting  him  for  the  first  time  Lord  Durham 
was  impressed.  .  .  .  Disraeli  and  he  formed  at  the 
moment  a  finely-contrasted  picture.  Understanding  his 
game  perfectly,  the  author  deferred  constantly  and  adroitly 
to  the  opinion  of  his  noble  listener,  shaped  his  argument 
by  his  suggestions,  allowed  him  to  say  nothing  without  using 
it  as  the  nucleus  of  some  new  turn  to  his  eloquence,  and  all 
this  with  an  apparent  effort  against  it,  as  if  he  had  desired 
to  address  himself  exclusively  to  Lady  Blessington,  but 
was  compelled  by  a  superior  intellectual  magnetism  to  turn 
aside  to  pay  homage  to  her  guest.  .  .  .  Without  meaning 
any  disrespect  to  Disraeli,  whom  I  admire  as  much  as  any 
man  in  England,  I  remarked  to  my  neighbour,  a  celebrated 
artist,  that  it  would  make  a  glorious  drawing  of  Satan  tempt- 
ing an  archangel  to  rebel. 

Well,  Disraeli  is  in  Parliament,  and  Lord  Durham  on 
the  last  round  but  one  of  the  ladder  of  subject  greatness. 
The  Viceroy  will  be  Premier,  no  doubt,  but  it  is  question- 
able if  the  author  of  Vivian  Grey  does  more  than  carry 
out  the  moral  of  his  own  tale.  Talking  at  a  brilliant 
table,  with  an  indulgent  and  superb  woman  on  the  watch 
for  wit  and  eloquence,  and  rising  in  the  face  of  a  cold,  common- 
sense  House  of  Commons  on  the  look  out  for  froth  and  humbug, 
are  two  different  matters.  In  a  great  crisis,  with  the  nation 
in  a  tempest,  Disraeli  would  flash  across  the  darkness  very 
finely,  but  he  will  never  do  for  the  calm  right  hand  of  a 
Premier.1 


This  testimony  as  to  Disraeli's  powers  of  conversation  is 
confirmed  in  a  less  exuberant  manner  by  another  witness. 
'I  frequently  met  Mr.  Disraeli  at  Lady  Blessington's,' 
writes  her  biographer. 

1  N.  P.  Willis  —  known  among  his  countrymen,  for  reasons  which 
any  reader  of  the  above  excerpt  will  understand,  as  '  Namby  Pamby ' 
Willis— in  the  New  York  Mirror  for  Aug.  11,  1838. 


250  LIFE  IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xii 

Though  in  general  society  he  was  habitually  silent  and 
reserved,  he  was  closely  observant.  It  required  generally  a 
subject  of  more  than  common  interest  to  produce  the  fitting 
degree  of  enthusiasm  to  animate  him  and  to  stimulate  him 
into  the  exercise  of  his  marvellous  powers  of  conversation. 
When  duly  excited,  however,  his  command  of  language  was 
truly  wonderful,  his  power  of  sarcasm  unsurpassed ;  the 
readiness  of  his  wit,  the  quickness  of  his  perception,  the 
grasp  of  mind  that  enabled  him  to  seize  on  all  the  parts  of 
any  subject  under  discussion,  those  only  would  venture  to 
call  in  question  who  had  never  been  in  his  company  at  the 
period  I  refer  to.1 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

June  19, 1834. 

I  was  at  the  Duchess  of  St.  Albans  on  Monday,  but  rather 
too  late  for  the  fun.  It  was  a  most  brilliant  f&te.  The  break- 
fast a  real  banquet;  but  I  missed  the  Morris  dancers,  &c. 
In  the  evening  at  Lady  Essex,  where  the  coterie  consisted  of 
the  new  Postmaster-General  and  his  lady,  the  Chesterfields, 
George  Ansons,  and  Albert  Conynghams,  and  Castlereagh. 
Tuesday  after  the  Opera  I  supped  with  Castlereagh,  who 
gave  a  very  rechercM  party.  Ossulston,2  myself,  Massey 
Stanley,  and  a  Forester,  not  Cecil.  Wednesday  a  good  dinner 
at  Lady  Sykes :  to-night,  after  paying  my  respects  to  their 
Majesties  at  the  Opera,  I  am  going  to  the  Duchess  of 
Hamilton's. 

I  have  had  great  success  in  society  this  year  in  every 
respect.  ...  I  make  my  way  easily  in  the  highest  set, 
where  there  is  no  envy,  malice,  &c.,  and  where  they  like  to 
admire  and  be  amused.  Yesterday  Lord  Durham  called  upon 
me,  being  the  first  day  he  has  been  in  town  since  we  met.  I 
was  not  at  home;  but  this  Lady  Blessington  told  me.  I  am 
also  right  in  politics  as  well  as  society,  being  now  backed  by  a 
very  powerful  party,  and  I  think  the  winning  one. 

A  good  story!  On  Monday,  I  think,  Lady  Sykes  was  at 
Lady  Cork's,  and  Lord  Carrington  paid  her  a  visit. 

Lady  C. :  Do  you  know  young  Disraeli  ? 

Lord  C. :  Hem  !     Why  ?     Eh  ? 

Lady  C. :  Why,  he  is  your  neighbour,  isn't  he,  eh  ? 

Lord  C. :  His  father  is. 

1  Madden's  Countess  of  Blessington,  III.,  p.  81. 

2  Castlereagh  was  afterwards  4th  Marquis  of  Londonderry  and  Ossul- 
ston 6th  Earl  of  Tankerville. 


1834]  SOCIAL   SUCCESS  251 

Lady  C. :  I  know  that.  His  father  is  one  of  my  dearest 
friends.  I  dote  on  the  Disraelis. 

Lord  C. :  The  young  man  is  a  very  extraordinary  sort  of 
person.  The  father  I  like;  he  is  very  quiet  and 
respectable. 

Lady  C. :  Why  do  you  think  the  young  man  extraordinary  ? 
I  should  not  think  that  you  could  taste  him. 

Lord  C. :  He  is  a  great  agitator.  Not  that  he  troubles  us 
much  now.  He  is  never  amongst  us  now.  I  believe 
he  has  gone  abroad  again. 

Lady  C.,  literatim:  You  old  fool!  Why,  he  sent  me  this 
book  this  morning.  You  need  not  look  at  it ;  you  can't 
understand  it.  It  is  the  finest  book  ever  written. 
Gone  abroad,  indeed!  Why,  he  is  the  best  ton  in 
London !  There  is  not  a  party  that  goes  down  without 
him.  The  Duchess  of  Hamilton  says  there  is  nothing 
like.  Lady  Lonsdale  would  give  her  head  and  shoul- 
ders for  him.  He  would  not  dine  at  your  house  if  you 
were  to  ask  him.  He  does  not  care  for  people  because 
they  are  lords;  he  must  have  fashion,  or  beauty,  or  wit, 
or  something ;  and  you  are  a  very  good  sort  of  person, 
but  you  are  nothing  more. 

The  old  Lord  took  it  very  good-humouredly,  and  laughed. 
Lady  Cork  has  read  every  line  of  the  new  book.  I  don't  doubt 
the  sincerity  of  her  admiration,  for  she  has  laid  out  17s.  in 
crimson  velvet,  and  her  maid  is  binding  it.  ... 

D. 

Monday  morning.    [July  7.] 
MY   DEABEST, 

I  have  quite  recovered,  but  I  am  taking  quinine  and  shall 
yet  for  a  few  days.  I  was  very  unwell  unto  Friday  evening. 
I  had  promised  to  join  a  water  party  in  Sir  Frank's  yacht, 
which  has  returned  without  its  master,  to  witness  the  Royal 
embarkation  on  Saturday  morning,  and  the  exertion,  which 
I  dreaded,  cured  me.  It  was  almost  the  only  party  of  pleasure 
that  ever  turned  out  pleasant.  Lady  Sykes  and  Sir  M.  and 
Lady  Georgiana  Cholmely,  the  Burdett  daughters,  Castlereagh, 
Ossulsfcon,  and  myself.  The  day  was  beautiful.  The  ladies 
went  off  the  night  before.  Ossulston  drove  me  down  in 
his  cab.  We  arrived  just  in  time,  half  past  9,  in  spite  of  a 
long  debate  011  tithes,  which  had  kept  him  and  Cas.  up  till  2. 
Cas.  rode  down  and  arrived  covered  with  dust  and  sulky,  but 
just  in  time  also;  and  regained  his  good  humor  after  break- 
fast. After  the  show  we  breakfasted,  and  sailed  up  to  Green- 
wich. After  lionising  the  hospital  and  sentimentalising  in 
the  Park,  we  had  a  magnificent  banquet  on  deck,  and  had 


252  LIFE   IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

nothing  from  shore  except  whitebait  piping  hot.  Ossulston 
was  our  minstrel,  and  a  most  musical  one ;  and  we  all  arrived 
in  town  in  time  for  the  ballet.  I  never  knew  a  more  agreeable 
day,  and  never  drank  so  much  champagne  in  my  life.  I 
woke,  quite  well,  and  after  a  very  dull  dinner  party  at  the 
Wyndham  Lewis's,  went  to  Lady  Salisbury's.  So  you  see 
I  am  on  my  legs  again.  I  am  sorry  for  dear  Jem,  but  he  has 
many  fellow-sufferers.  The  influenza,  however,  is  not  so 
severe  as  last  year. 

My  love  to  all.  Your  own  D. 

Ossulston  asked  me  to  allow  him  to  put  me  up  for 
Crockford's.  I  told  him  that  I  was  sure  I  should  be  black- 
balled ;  but  he  was  sanguine  of  the  reverse,  and  is  to  consult 
his  friends. 

Disraeli  was  not  elected  to  Crockford's,  the  famous 
gaming  house  in  St.  James's  Street,  till  1840,  shortly 
before  the  retirement  of  the  founder  and  the  consequent 
dissolution  of  the  club.  Another  social  institution  of 
the  day  was  Almack's,  a  periodical  subscription  ball 
held  at  Willis's  Rooms  and  presided  over  by  an  oligarchy 
of  fashionable  ladies,  who  wielded  their  powers  with  a 
jealous  and  vigilant  exclusiveness. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

July  11,  1834. 

I  made  my  debut  at  Almack's  with  a  subscription  from 
Lady  Tanker ville,1  but  it  was  not  a  very  brilliant  reunion. 
Yesterday  I  met  Lord  Lyndhurst,  whom  I  like  very  much. 
The  next  time  he  goes  the  Norfolk  circuit  he  is  to  sleep  at 
Bradenham.  He  says  the  Duke  of  Wellington  never  reads 
any  book  but  the  Commentaries,2  and  assured  me  it  was  a 
positive  fact! 

July  23. 

I  still  adhere  to  my  plan  of  being  down  with  you  in  a  week 
or  ten  days,  and  tell  Tita  to  get  my  pipes  in  order,  as  I 
look  forward  to  a  batch  of  smoking  with  great  zest. 

I  go  every  day  to  fgtes  and  water  parties.  Lady 
Tavistock's  at  Richmond  on  Saturday.  Monday,  another 

1  Daughter  of  Antoine  Due  de  Gramont  and  sister  of  the  Due  de 
Gramont  who  married  Count  Alfred  D'Orsay's  sister. 

2  Isaac  D'Israeli's  Commentaries  on  the  Life  and  Eeign  of  Charles  the 
First. 


1834]  THE   DIARY  AGAIN  253 

party  to  Blackwall  with  D'Orsay.  To-morrow  to  Lord 
Hertford's.  I  find  the  end  of  the  season  more  fatiguing 
than  the  beginning,  owing  to  the  morning  festivities. 

The  water  party  at  the  'Cedars'  most  delightful.  We 
embarked  at  five  o'clock,  the  heavens  very  favourable,  sang 
all  the  way  down,  wandered  in  beautiful  gardens  worthy 
of  Paul  Veronese  full  not  only  of  flowers,  but  fountains  and 
parroquets :  the  dinner  first-rate  and  much  better  than 
cold,  miserable  picnics,  in  which  all  bring  the  same  things. 
People  are  still  in  town.  But  Goodwood  will,  I  think,  clear 
us.1 

'  You  give  me  the  same  advice  as  my  father  ever  has 
done,'  he  wrote  on  some  occasion  to  Lady  Blessington, 
'  about  dotting  down  the  evanescent  feelings  of  youth  ; 
but,  like  other  excellent  advice,  I  fear  it  will  prove 
unprofitable.  I  have  a  horror  of  journalising,  and  indeed 
of  writing  of  all  description.  With  me  execution  is  ever 
a  labour  and  conception  a  delight.  Although  a  great 
traveller,  I  never  kept  a  diary  in  my  life.'  His  book  of 
jottings  and  reflections,  if  we  are  not  to  call  it  a  diary, 
had  been  forgotten  since  October,  but  in  the  seclusion 
of  Bradenham  he  returned  to  it  once  more. 

BEADENHAM, 

Aug.  4,  1834. 

And  now  nearly  a  year  has  elapsed.  And  what  an 
eventful  one !  Let  me  sketch  it.  The  end  of  1833  and  spring 
of  1834  passed  in  Essex,  writing  the  three  first  books  of  the 
Revolutionary  Epick :  returned  to  Bradenham  before  Easter, 
then  to  town  and  remained  there  until  this  moment.  A 
season  of  unparalleled  success  and  gaiety.  What  a  vast 
number  of  extraordinary  characters  have  passed  before  me 
or  with  whom  I  have  become  acquainted.  Interviews  with 
O'Connell,  Beckford,  and  Lord  Durham,  three  men  all  making 
a  great  noise.  Will  they  be  remembered  when  this  book 
turns  up,  if  ever  it  do?  Perhaps  O'Connell.  The  first  [he 
added  in  a  letter  to  his  sister]  is  the  man  of  the  greatest 
genius ;  the  second  of  the  greatest  taste ;  and  the  last  of  the 
greatest  ambition. 

Conversation  of  three  hours  with  O'Connell,  next  whom 
I  sat  at  dinner.  Very  communicative.  Said  that  from 
being  the  son  of  a  gentleman  farmer  he  had  raised  himself 
to  be  une  des  puissances  du  monde  (his  very  words).  Said  that 

1  Letters,  pp.  87,  88. 

\ 


254  LIFE  IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xu 

the  Clare  Election  was  the  most  nervous  moment  of  his  life. 
I  think  he  said  he  did  not  sleep  a  wink  for  three  days.  Had 
he  failed  he  would  have  been  ridiculous  for  life.  Did  not 
determine  on  the  step  until  he  had  tried  every  country  gentle- 
man favorable  to  the  Catholics.  Two  days  after  the  election 
a  legal  flaw  was  detected  in  the  registration  of  his  voters  by 
which,  had  it  been  discovered  in  time,  his  majority,  and  much 
more,  would  have  been  cut  off. 

How  sorry  I  am  that  I  did  not  keep  some  record  of  the  last 
four  months.  I  revived  my  acquaintance  with  the  Sheridans, 
with  whom  I  was  so  intimate  last  year,  Mrs.  Norton,  Helen 
Blackwood,  Lady  Seymour  —  three  matchless  sisters,  and  the 
mother  and  Lady  Graham. 

Mrs.  Norton's  house  was  the  scene  of  the  famous 
encounter  with  Lord  Melbourne,  of  which  the  story  has 
been  so  often  told. 

It  was  in  1834  that  I  met  Lord  Melbourne  at  Storey's  Gate 
and  was  introduced  to  him.  Lord  Melbourne  asked  how  he 
could  advance  me  in  life,  and  half  proposed  that  I  should 
be  his  private  secretary,  enquiring  what  my  object  in  life 
might  be.  'To  be  Prime  Minister.'  It  was  then  that  Lord 
Melbourne,  with  a  gravity  not  common  with  him,  set  to 
work  to  prove  to  me  how  vain  and  impossible  to  realise,  in 
those  days,  was  this  ambition.  It  was  a  long  speech,  and 
I  think  I  could  repeat  every  word  of  it  still. 

So  Disraeli  himself  told  the  story  to  Lord  Rowton,  and 
Melbourne's  biographer  supplies  what  is  missing.  Lord 
Grey,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind,  had  not  yet  resigned, 
and  Melbourne  was  still  Home  Secretary.  Disraeli  was 
presented  to  him  after  dinner,  and  the  two  had  a  long 
conversation. 

The  Minister  was  attracted  more  and  more  as  he  listened 
to  the  uncommonplace  language  and  spirit  of  the  youthful 
politician,  and  thought  to  himself  he  would  be  well  worth 
serving.  Abruptly,  but  with  a  certain  tone  of  kindness  which 
took  away  any  air  of  assumption,  he  said,  'Well  now,  tell 
me,  what  do  you  want  to  be?'  The  quiet  gravity  of  the 
reply  fairly  took  him  aback  — '  I  want  to  be  Prime  Minister.' 
Melbourne  gave  a  long  sigh,  and  then  said  very  seriously : 
'No  chance  of  that  in  our  time.  It  is  all  arranged  and 
settled.  Nobody  but  Lord  Grey  could  perhaps  have  carried 
the  Reform  Bill;  but  he  is  an  old  man,  and  when  he  gives 


1834]  THE   MELBOURNE   INCIDENT  255 

up,  he  will  certainly  be  succeeded  by  one  who  has  every 
requisite  for  the  position,  in  the  prime  of  life  and  fame, 
of  old  blood,  high  rank,  great  fortune,  and  greater  ability. 
Once  in  power,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  him  holding  office 
as  long  as  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  Nobody  can  compete  with 
Stanley.  I  heard  him  the  other  night  in  the  Commons, 
when  the  party  were  all  divided  and  breaking  away  from 
their  ranks,  recall  them  by  the  mere  force  of  superior  will 
and  eloquence:  he  rose  like  a  young  eagle  above  them  all, 
and  kept  hovering  over  their  heads  till  they  were  reduced 
to  abject  submission.  There  is  nothing  like  him.  If  you 
are  going  into  politics  and  mean  to  stick  to  it,  I  daresay  you 
will  do  very  well,  for  you  have  ability  and  enterprise ;  and 
if  you  are  careful  how  you  steer,  no  doubt  you  will  get  into 
some  port  at  last.  But  you  must  put  all  these  foolish  notions 
out  of  your  head;  they  won't  do  at  all.  Stanley  will  be  the 
next  Prime  Minister,  you  will  see.'1 

There  is  a  sequel  to  the  story  which  is  not  so  well 
known.  Melbourne  lived  till  near  the  close  of  1848  ; 
and  when,  after  the  death  of  Lord  George  Beiitinck  and 
shortly  before  his  own,  he  heard  of  Disraeli's  approaching 
elevation  to  the  leadership  of  the  Tory  party  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  exclaimed  in  some  excitement, 
4 By  God !  the  fellow  will  do  it  yet.' 

I  have  become  this  year  [the  diary  resumes]  very  popular 
with  the  dandies.  D'Orsay  took  a  fancy  to  me,  and  they 
take  their  tone  from  him.  Lady  Blessington  is  their  muse, 
and  she  declared  violently  in  my  favor.  I  am  as  popular 
with  first-rate  men  as  I  am  hated  by  the  second-rate:  D'Orsay, 
Massey  Stanley,  Talbot,  Marquis  of  Worcester.  Revived 
my  acquaintance  with  Angerstein,2  who  thought  I  meant  to 
cut  him  —  an  error !  I  am  very  blind. 

What  a  happy  or  rather  amusing  society  H[enrietta] 3 
and  myself  commanded  this  year.  What  delicious  little 
suppers  after  the  Opera !  Castlereagh  ever  gay,  a  con- 
stant attendant,  and  Ossulston,  the  pet  of  all  the  women, 
with  his  beautiful  voice.  What  a  singular  character  is 
Ossulston.  He  requires  studying.  Then  we  made  it  a  point 
always  to  have  some  very  pretty  women.  Charles  Mathews 
ever  there.  Inimitable  mime !  His  animal  spirits  are  extraor- 

1  Torrens's  Life  of  Melbourne,  p.  275. 

2  His     •'oxmrW-  it    will    be    remembered,    in    the    affair    with    Lord 
Nugent. 

8  See  below,  p.  339. 


256  LIFE  IN  LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

dinary.  Landseer  (Edwin),  Grantley  Berkeley,  Seymour  de 
Constant.  This  last  hero  reminds  me  of  that  extraordinary 
woman  Lady  Dudley  Stuart1  and  she  again  of  her  family  — 
most  of  whom  I  know,  Lucien  Prince  of  Ganino,  Joseph 
Count  of  Survilliers.  Lady  Dudley's  little  son,  like  the 
Emperor.  And  Lord  Dudley  must  not  be  forgotten  with 
his  handsome  melancholy  face,  and  then  Lady  Tankerville 
and  her  lovers.  How  much  I  could  write  of  this  singular 
coterie !  But  this  is  a  mem.  which  will  recall  them  perhaps 
to  my  memory. 

Old  Lady  Salisbury  and  old  Lady  Cork.  Met  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  at  Lady  Cork's  in  his  blue  ribbon  the  eve  of 
the  day  Lord  Grey  resigned.  'He  always  wears  his  blue 
ribbon  when  mischief  is  going  on,'  whispered  Ossulston  to 
me. 

Rogers  hates  me.  I  can  harJly  believe,  as  he  gives  out, 
that  V.  G.  is  the  cause.  Considering  his  age  I  endeavoured 
to  conciliate  him,  but  it  is  impossible.  I  think  I  will  give  him 
cause  to  hate  me.  When  Shee  was  elected  P.  R.  A.  Rogers 
(his  friend)  said  it  was  the  greatest  compliment  ever  paid  to 
Literature. 

Lord  Wilton  and  his  Italian.  The  story  I  thought  too  good 
but  I  believe  true. 

f  Come  sto  Signer  Rubinil 
[Come  sta  Signora  Grisi  J 

Dined  with  him  at  Lady  B.'s. 

Lady  Blessington  and  Lady  Manners  Sutton  [her  sister]. 
The  Speaker  appeared  to  me  a  bete  when  I  was  introduced  to 
him  by  his  wife. 

Long  conversation  with  Lord  Lyndhurst.  He  said  that  if 
he  were  to  choose  a  career  now  it  would  be  at  once  editor 
and  proprietor  of  a  firstrate  newspaper. 


To  Lady  Blessington. 

BRADENHAM  HOUSE, 

Aug.  5.     [1834.] 

I  was  so  sorry  to  leave  London  without  being  a  moment 
alone  with  you;  but  although  I  came  to  the  Opera  last  night 
on  purpose,  Fate  was  against  us.  I  did  not  reach  this  place 
until  Sunday,  very  ill  indeed  from  the  pangs  of  parting. 
Indeed,  I  feel  as  desolate  as  a  ghost,  and  I  do  not  think 
that  I  ever  shall  be  able  to  settle  to  anything  again.  It  is 

1  Daughter  of  Lucien  Bonaparte. 


1834]  LADY  BLESSINGTON  257 

a  great  shame,  when  people  are  happy  together,  that  they 
should  be  ever  separated;  but  it  seems  the  great  object 
of  all  human  legislation  that  people  never  should  be  happy 
together. 

My  father  I  find  better  than  I  expected,  and  much  cheered 
by  my  presence.  I  delivered  him  all  your  kind  messages. 
He  is  now  very  busy  on  his  History  of  English  Literature,  in 
which  he  is  far  advanced.  I  am  mistaken  if  you  will  not 
delight  in  these  volumes.  They  are  full  of  new  views  of  the 
history  of  our  language,  and  indeed  of  our  country,  for  the 
history  of  a  State  is  necessarily  mixed  up  with  the  history  of 
its  literature. 

For  myself,  I  am  doing  nothing.  The  western  breeze  favors 
an  al  fresco  existence,  and  I  am  seated  with  a  pipe  under  a 
spreading  sycamore,  solemn  as  a  pasha. 

I  wish  you  would  induce  Hookham  to  entrust  me  with 
Agathon,1  that  mad  Byronic  novel. 

What  do  you  think  of  the  modern  "French  novelists,  and  is 
it  worth  my  while  to  read  them,  and  if  so,  what  do  you  recom- 
mend me  ?  What  of  Balzac,  is  he  better  than  Sue  and  Geo : 
Sand  Dudevant  and  are  these  inferior  to  Hugo  ?  I  ask  you 
these  questions  because  you  will  give  me  short  answers,  like 
all  people  who  are  masters  of  their  subject. 

I  suppose  it  is  vain  to  hope  to  see  my  dear  D'Orsay  here ; 
I  wish  indeed  he  would  come.  Here  is  a  cook  by  no  means 
contemptible.  He  can  bring  his  horses  if  he  like,  but  I  can 
mount  him.  Adieu,  dear  Lady  Blessington,  some  day  I  will 
try  to  write  you  a  more  amusing  letter ;  at  present  I  am  in 
truth  ill  and  sad.2 


BRADENHAM  HOUSE, 

Friday,  Aug.  15.    [1834.] 
MY  DEAR  LADY  BLESSINGTON, 

I  have  been  very  unwell,  or  I  should  sooner  have  acknow- 
ledged the  receipt  of  your  kind  letter.  I  can  assure  you  that 
your  friendship  is  a  great  consolation  to  me.  The  change  of 
life  was  too  sad  and  sudden.  Indeed  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  how 
to  manage  affairs  in  future  as  I  find  separation  more  irksome 
than  even  my  bitterest  imagination  predicted.  God  however 
is  great,  and  the  future  must  regulate  itself,  for  I  can't.  I 
have  done  nothing  but  scribble  one  day  a  third  part  of  The 
Infernal  Marriage  with  which  fantasy  Colburn  pretends  now 
to  be  much  pleased.  I  suppose  your  letter  is  at  the  bottom 
of  his  rapture. 

1  A  translation  from  the  German  of  Wieland. 

2  From  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison's  collection  of  autograph  letters. 

VOL.    I  —  8 


258  LIFE   IN   LONDON  [CHAP,  xn 

I  am  delighted  with  Agatlion.  It  left  rne  musing  which  is 
a  test  of  a  great  work.  I  invariably  close  one  in  a  reverie. 
Wieland  indeed  always  delights  me.  I  sympathise  with  him 
much.  There  is  a  wild  Oriental  fancy  blended  with  his 
Western  philosophy  which  is  a  charming  union.  I  like  a  moral 
to  peep  out  of  the  wildest  invention,  to  assure  us  that,  while 
we  have  been  amused,  we  have  also  all  the  time  been  growing 
a  little  wiser.  The  translation  of  the  Agathon  is  very  clumsy. 
I  wish  I  could  read  it  in  the  original  but  I  have  no  talent  for 
languages  and  invariably  lose  my  command  over  English  in 
an  exact  proportion  as  I  gain  any  hold  over  another  tongue. 
.  .  .  My  kind  regards  to  his  Highness,  King  Alfred:  a 
wise  man  though  not  a  Saxon. 

Your  faithful 

D. 

From,  Lady  Blessington. 

Aug.  20,  1834. 

I  am  very  sorry  indeed  to  hear  that  you  have  been  ill  and 
sad ;  we  are  all  but  poor  machines,  easily  put  out  of  order, 
when  the  mind,  or  the  heart,  or  both  —  for  they  always  like 
true  friends  sympathise  —  are  deranged  or  chagrined.  What 
poor  philosophers  even  the  wisest  of  us  are  proved  to  be,  when 
influenced  by  some  master  passion,  and  authors  who,  like 
yourself,  can  make  others  think,  are  among  those  who  can  the 
least  govern  their  own  thoughts,  when  once  under  the  rule  of 
love.  Genius  is,  and  must  ever  be,  accompanied  by-  passions 
proportionately  strong,  and  I  therefore  reserve  all  my  sym- 
pathies for  its  calamities,  which  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  the 
practice  of  the  world. 

From  Count  D' Or  say. 

[Undated.] 

C'est  une  injustice  que  fait  le  cher  Disraeli  que  de  supposer 
qu'il  ne  peut  approcher  son  ami  que  comme  un  Pacha  a  trois 
queues,  charge  de  presents  orientaux.  Ces  chevaux  arabes, 
ces  sabres  damas,  ne  sont  que  des  presents  materiels,  mais 
lorsqu'il  s'agit  de  dons  spirituels,  de  ceux  qu'une  belle  Nature 
seule  peut  engendre,  c'est  alors  qu'il  regrette  de  ne  pas  voir 
celui  qui  possede  toute  la  vivacite  et  le  feu  du  coursier  arabien 
dans  le  caractere  et  le  tranchant  dans  1'esprit  du  damas.  Ces 
richesses  sont  les  seules  dont  1'homnie  ait  le  droit  de  seglorifier 
et  le  cher  Disraeli  a  done  extremement  tort,  d'etre  injuste 
envers  cette  belle  Nature,  qui  a  ete  si  geuereuse  a  son  egard. 

Son  ami  affectionne, 

D'ORSAY. 


1834]  ILLNESS  259 

To  Lady  Blessington. 

BRADENHAM, 

Friday.    [Oct.  17, 1834.] 
MY  DEAB  LADY  BLESSINGTON, 

.  .  .  I  sympathise  with  your  sufferings ;  my  experi- 
ence unhappily  assures  me  how  ably  you  describe  them.  This 
golden  autumn  ought  to  have  cured  us  all.  I  myself,  in  spite 
of  the  sunshine,  have  been  a  great  invalid.  Indeed,  I  know- 
not  how  it  is,  but  I  am  never  well  save  in  action,  and  then 
I  feel  immortal.  I  am  ashamed  of  being  '  nervous.'  Dyspepsia 
always  makes  me  wish  for  a  civil  war.  In  the  meantime  I 
amuse  myself  by  county  politics.  .  .  . 

My  father  sends  his  kindest  regards.  As  for  myself,  I  am 
dying  for  action,  and  rust  like  a  Damascus  sabre  in  the  sheathe 
of  a  poltroon. 

Adieu !  dear  friend,  we  shall  meet  on  your  return. 

B.    DlSRAELI.1 

To  Benjamin  Austen. 

BRADENHAM, 

Oct.  24,  1834. 

I  have  been  prevented  in  bringing  out  a  novel  [Henrietta 
Temple]  in  November  by  a  strange  illness  which  kept  me  to 
my  sofa  exactly  two  months.  It  was  something  of  the  kind 
of  attack  you  experienced  at  Fyfield  —  great  pain  in  the  legs 
and  extraordinary  languor.  It  came  upon  me  suddenly.  I 
struggled  against  it  for  some  time,  but  mounting  my  horse 
one  day,  I  had  a  slight  determination  of  blood  to  my  head, 
and  was  obliged  to  throw  myself  on  the  floor  of  the  hall. 
This  frightened  me,  remembering  old  sufferings,  and  I  laid  up. 
Quiet,  diet  and  plenteous  doses  of  ammonia  (heavenly  maid !) 
not  only  restored  me,  but  I  have  felt  better  and  more  hearty 
this  last  fortnight  than  I  long  remember. 

1  From  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison's  collection. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JOINS  THE  CONSERVATIVES 
1834-1835 

The  last  letters  prepare  us  for  another  period  of  mainly 
political  activity.  Nearly  two  years  had  now  elapsed 
since  the  second  Wycombe  election,  and  during  that 
interval,  while  the  politician  slumbered  in  Disraeli, 
public  events  had  been  moving  swiftly  on.  '  There  is 
nothing  more  remarkable,'  he  writes  in  Endymion,1 
'  than  the  sudden  break-up  of  the  Whig  party  after  their 
successful  revolution  of  1832.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  instances  on  record  of  all  the  elements  of  political 
power  being  useless  without  a  commanding  individual 
will.'  Durham,  whose  place  was  at  the  extreme  left  of 
the  party,  had  abandoned  the  Grey  Ministry  in  March, 
1833  ;  Stanley  and  Graham  at  the  extreme  right  had 
followed  in  May,  1834;  and  Lord  Grey  himself  retired 
a  couple  of  months  later.  Melbourne  succeeded  as 
Prime  Minister  ;  but  in  November  his  position  was 
weakened  by  the  succession  of  Lord  Althorp  to  the  peer- 
age, and  his  consequent  withdrawal  from  the  House  of 
Commons,  of  which  he  had  been  leader,  and  King 
William  IV.  seized  the  opportunity  of  dismissing  his 
Ministers  to  make  way  for  Peel  and  Wellington.  During 
the  crisis  that  followed  the  retirement  of  Stanley  and 

*  Ch.  14. 
260 


1834]  LORD   LYNDHURST  261 

Graham,  Disraeli  had   anticipated  the   course  of   events 
with  curious  prescience. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

June  4,  1834. 

There  is  a  lull  in  the  storm ;  it  is  supposed  the  session  will 
now  be  hurried  over  quietly,  and  then  something  must  be 
determined  on.  The  Whigs  cannot  exist  as  a  party  without 
taking  in  Lord  Durham,  and  the  King  will  not  consent  to  it. 
Durham  is  not  in  a  hurry,  and  becomes  each  day  more  violent 
in  his  demands.  Triennial  Parliaments  to  be  a  Cabinet 
measure,  and  an  extension  of  the  constituency,  the  ballot  to 
stand  on  its  merits  —  in  short,  a  revolution ;  for  this  must 
lead  to  a  fatal  collision  with  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Tories 
will  not  take  office  unless  the  Whigs  give  it  up  in  despair. 
My  own  opinion  is,  that  in  the  recess  the  King  will  make  an 
effort  to  try  and  form  a  Conservative  Government  with  Peel 
and  Stanley ;  but  the  Tories  think  that  Durham  will  have 
his  way.  I  fear  a  dissolution  must  be  the  end  of  it.1 

Incidentally  this  letter  reveals  a  growing  estrange- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  writer  from  the  Radicalism  of 
his  first  political  campaigns:  triennial  Parliaments  and 
the  ballot,  the  nostrums  which  had  figured  so  promi- 
nently in  his  earlier  political  programmes,  had  now 
come  to  spell  4a  revolution.'  Disraeli's  acquaintance 
with  Durham  may  have  checked  for  a  moment  the 
progress  of  his  conversion ;  but  Durham's  influence  was 
soon  overshadowed  by  the  influence  of  another  and  more 
congenial  spirit.  At  the  end  of  the  season,  as  has  been 
seen,  he  had  met  Lord  Lyndhurst,  and  their  acquaint- 
ance soon  ripened  into  a  friendship  which  became  a  capi- 
tal fact  in  Disraeli's  life.  Lyndhurst  was  already  over 
sixty,  but  he  had  still  nearly  thirty  years  of  life  before 
him,  and  he  was  still  in  the  full  vigour  of  those  splendid 
faculties  which  might  have  given  him  an  even  higher 
place  among  his  contemporaries  and  in  the  eyes  of 
posterity  than  that  to  which  he  attained,  if  he  had  only 
possessed  in  larger  measure  the  power  of  inspiring  con- 
fidence, which  is  so  essential  to  the  success  of  a  states- 
man in  England.  But  he  suffered  from  a  certain  lack 
1  Letters,  p.  86. 


262  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xin 

of  seriousness,  and  the  crowning  gifts  of   lofty  purpose 
and  severe  integrity  were  denied  him. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Nov.  4,  1834. 

I  dined  on  Saturday  with  Lyndhurst  enfamille.  A  more 
amiable  and  agreeable  family  I  never  met.  The  eldest 
daughter,  <Sa,'  is  just  like  her  mother,  and,  although  only 
thirteen,  rules  everything  and  everybody  —  a  most  astound- 
ing little  woman.  Yesterday  I  went  to  see  the  new  actor, 
Denvil.  He  is  deplorable,  has  not  the  slightest  feeling,  nor 
one  physical  or  mental  qualification  for  the  stage.  I  saw 
Chandos  to-day,  and  had  a  long  conversation  with  him  on 
politics.  He  has  no  head,  but  I  flatter  myself  I  opened  his 
mind  a  little.  .  .  .  D'Orsay  has  taken  my  portrait.1 

Lord  Chandos,  as  has  been  seen,  was  one  of  the  members 
for  Bucks  ;  but,  as  the  author  or  reputed  author  of  the 
famous  clause  in  the  Reform  Bill  which  enfranchised 
the  agricultural  occupiers,  and  as  the  recognised  spokes- 
man for  the  farmers  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  was 
a  person  of  more  than  local  importance.  With  his 
genius  for  intrigue  Disraeli  was  not  long  in  devising  a 
plot  in  which  his  county  member  and  his  new  friend 
Lyndhurst  might  be  usefully  combined.  Let  him  tell 
the  tale  himself.2 

I  became  acquainted  with  Lord  L.  at  the  latter  end  of 
the  summer  of  1834.  We  took  to  each  other  instantly. 
I  sat  next  to  him  at  dinner  at  Henrietta's.  He  went  abroad 
in  the  autumn  with  a  family  party  which  he  asked  me  to 
accompany,  but  I  refused.  On  his  return  we  again  met  with 
much  intimacy.  It  was  the  latter  end  of  October  that  he 
first  began  to  speak  to  me  in  confidence  on  political  affairs. 
It  was  his  opinion  at  that  moment  that  the  end  of  Whiggisrn 
was  at  hand.  The  secession  of  the  Stanley  party,  the 

1  Letters,  p.  88. 

2  What  follows  is  from  a  memorandum  inscribed  over  date  '  Hughen- 
den,     18(53'  —  th.e    year    of    Lyndhurst's    death  —  'I    cut    this    out 
of    an    old    paper    book.       It    was    written    at    Bradenham    in    1836, 
and   is   very   authentic.'      Its  accuracy   in   certain   points  of    detail    is 
confirmed  by  contemporary  letters  from  Lyndhurst  and  Chandos  them- 
selves. 


BEN.IAMIX  DISRAELI 


1834]  LYNDHURST   AND   CHANDOS  263 

subsequent  intrigues  of  the  Whigs  with  O'Connell  and 
the  consequent  retirement  of  Lord  Grey  on  their  dis- 
covery had  reduced  the  mighty  reform  Parliament  in  spite 
of  their  apparently  overwhelming  majority  to  a  very  low 
ebb  in  public  opinion ;  but  the  nation  at  large  was  impressed 
with  an  idea  that  from  their  reconstruction  of  the  con- 
stituency they  were  our  masters  for  life.  I  had  then  no 
political  relations,  though  I  had  had  overtures  from  Durham, 
who  offered  to  return  me  to  Parliament.  I  had  conversation 
with  him,  but  he  appeared  to  me  to  have  no  definite  plan. 
Lord  L.  thought  the  time  had  arrived  when  the  movement 
might  be  stopped.  He  was  looking  about  for  a  party  to  put 
in  motion  which  might  not  seem  factious.  After  some 
consultation  he  resolved  that  the  Ministers  should  be  thrown 
in  a  minority  on  some  agricultural  amendment  at  the  meeting 
of  Parliament,  and  I  agreed  to  see  Lord  Chandos,  with  whom 
I  had  a  county  acquaintance,  on  the  subject. 

I  went  into  the  country  therefore  to  attend  some  meet- 
ing of  our  agricultural  committee.  We  agreed  to  petition 
Parliament  on  the  Malt  Tax,  and  I  was  requested  to  prepare 
the  county  petition  to  the  House  of  Commons,  which  I  did. 
After  business  was  over  I  took  Lord  C.  aside  and  it  was 
settled  that  I  should  go  over  with  him  to  Wotton  and  talk 
over  affairs.  The  result  of  our  conference  was  this — being, 
I  think,  the  llth  November  —  that  he  undertook  to  organise 
a  country  party  and  throw  the  Government  in  a  minority 
on  Parliament  meeting  by  an  agricultural  amendment  on 
the  address.  He  required  for  himself  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  but  told  me  then  that  he  was  assured,  from 
some  communication  he  had  received,  that  the  Duke  would 
recommend  Peel  as  Premier.  He  made  no  terms  for  any 
other  country  leader  except  Knatchbull,  who,  he  stipulated, 
should  have  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet. 

In  the  evening  of  the  12th  I  arrived  in  town  on  my  return 
and  immediately  had  an  interview  with  L.  who  told  me 
the  Duke  of  W.  had  arrived  that  day  and  that  Lord  Spencer 
was  dead,  which,  by-the-bye,  I  had  heard  at  Wotton  as  I 
was  departing,  Chandos  hurrying  my  departure,  as  he  said 
he  thought  this  was  the  last  blow  to  the  Cabinet.  Lord  L. 
immediately  wrote  to  the  D.  requesting  an  interview,  and 
afterwards  appointed  me  to  meet  him  at  his  private  room 
in  the  Exchequer1  the  morning  of  the  14th,  at  2  o'clock,  to 
hear  the  result.  The  Duke  fixed  the  evening  of  the  13th 
for  the  interview,  and  I  wrote  to  Lord  C.  accordingly. 

Lord  L.  had  accordingly  his  interview  with  the  D.  on 
the  evening  of  the  13th,  and  opened  his  plan ;  but  the  D. 

1  Lyndhurst  was  Chief  Baron. 


264  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES  [CHAP,  xin 

threw  cold  water  upon  it.  The  interview  finished  thus :  — 
'  At  this  moment  I  will  make  no  movements  —  to-morrow 
morning  I  depart  for  Strathfieldsaye.  If  the  King  is  well 
advised  he  will  now  send  for  me  —  but  I  will  not  even  be  in 
London.'  In  spite  of  what  occurred  Lord  L.  does  not  believe 
that  the  D.  was  at  the  time  in  any  communication  with  the 
Court.  The  D.  accordingly  departed  for  Strathfieldsaye 
the  following  morning,  and  I  wrote  to  Lord  C.  notifying  his 
Grace's  refusal  to  concur  in  our  plan,  of  which  I  had  been 
apprised  by  Lord  L.  on  the  morning  of  the  14th.  On  the 
same  day  (the  14th)  the  Ministry  were  dismissed  at  Brighton, 
and  a  messenger  arrived  for  the  Duke  at  Apsley  House. 
The  letter  was,  I  believe,  brought  up  by  Lord  Melbourne 
himself.  It  was  immediately  forwarded  to  Strathfieldsaye. 

15th  Nov.  —  Dismissal  of  the  Ministry  publicly  announced. 
The  Duke  at  Brighton  —  whence  he  wrote  to  Lyndhurst, 
informing  him  that  he  had  recommended  H.M.  to  send  for 
Peel,  and  requesting  him  to  meet  his  Grace  the  following 
morning  at  Apsley  House.  This  L.  communicated  to  me 
in  the  evening.  After  that  interview  I  met  L.  The  Duke 
was  in  good  spirits.  He  said  '  It  will  be  a  month  perhaps 
before  he  comes.  All  that  we  have  got  to  do  now  is  to  get 
the  Government  of  the  country  into  our  hands.  I  shall  sit  at 
the  Treasury  and  take  all  the  Secretary's  seals ;  you  must 
take  the  Great  Seal  —  you  and  I  must  be  the  government  of 
the  country.  Things  are  quiet,  the  people  will  not  murmur.' 
Thus  the  government  of  the  country  was  efficiently  carried 
on,  L.  retaining  his  C[hief]  B[aron]y  and  sitting  also  in  the 
Chancery.  Nobody  murmured.  The  general  opinion  was 
that  the  Tories  would  succeed.  Bonham  calculated  we  might 
just  get  a  Tory  majority,  but  the  chief  hope  was  in  the 
goodness  of  our  measures  and  the  impossibility  of  the 
Conservative  Whigs  d,  la  Grey,  &c.,  coalescing  with  Papists 
and  Republicans.  Lord  L.  was,  however,  in  the  habit  of 
saying  to  me  '  You  will  see  that  there  will  be  a  coalition 
of  all  parties  against  us.'  'You  will  see  that  these  fellows 
will  coalesce.' 

Great  was  the  suspense  until  Peel  arrived.  At  last  one 
evening  we  were  informed  that  he  had  indeed  come.  The 
messenger,  Mr.  Hudson,  a  King's  page,  reached  him  at 
Rome,  about  to  depart  for  Naples.  P.  immediately  had  an 
audience  of  the  King  and  undertook  the  Government,  and 
then  interviews  with  the  D.  and  L.  He  immediately  offered 
the  F.  Secretary  to  the  Duke  and  the  Great  Seal  to  L.,  who 
accepted  it,  though  at  a  sacrifice.  He  then  wrote  to  Lord 
Stanley  offering  him  four  places  in  the  Cabinet,  at  his  choice, 
with  the  above  exceptions.  Never  was  such  an  offer  before 


1834]  TPIE   PEEL   MINISTRY  265 

—  never  will  it  be  made  again.  The  refusal  of  Lord  Stanley 
was  expected,  but  it  was  not  expected  that  the  reason  would 
have  been  his  unwillingness  to  act  with  the  D.  on  account  of 
foreign  policy.  This  was  frivolous.  Sir  J[ames]  G[raham] 
was  inclined  to  join,  but,  of  course,  went  with  Lord  S. 

From  this  moment  P.  only  consulted  Goulburn,  which 
astonished  all  and  disgusted  many.  Sir  H[enry]  H[ardinge] 
was  dissatisfied  at  being  offered  Ireland,  which,  however, 
he  accepted.  G[oulburn]  was  Secretary  for  Home;  a  very 
unpopular  appointment.  Lord  Ashburton  accepted  the  Board 
of  Trade  on  the  condition  of  being  Lord  Ashburton  —  a 
good  name,  but  Mr.  B[aring]  has  had  no  success  in  the  Upper 
House.  The  man  who  gained  most  was  Scarlett  —  a  Chief 
[Barony  of  the  Exchequer]  and  a  peerage  [as  Lord 
Abinger]  after  having  been  apparently  shelved.  Chandos, 
entangled  in  our  agricultural  intrigues  and  pledged  to  the 
repeal  of  the  Malt  Tax,  was  obliged  to  decline  office,  as  Peel 
would  not  consent  to  his  panacea.  Knatchbull  was  less 
nice  and  deserted  the  Country  party. 

The  Cabinet  was  necessarily  a  weak  one,  and  contained 
many  feeble  and  some  odious  names.  And  yet  never  did 
a  Cabinet  mature  such  admirable  and  comprehensive 
measures !  But  all  was  owing  to  P.  and  L.  The  law 
appointments  were  excellent  and  popular.  To  the  astonish- 
ment of  Lord  L.  Sugden  accepted  the  Irish  Chancellorship. 
Before  he  offered  it  to  him  L.  was  prepared  for  an  indignant 
refusal.  Pollock  was  Attorney,  a  weak  man  but  the  leader 
of  his  circuit:  the  Solicitor,  Follett,  who  had  great  success 
in  the  House  as  well  as  at  the  Bar,  though  the  youngest 
Solicitor,  I  believe,  ever  appointed.  So  excellent  were  the 
projected  measures  of  the  Cabinet  that  with  300  Tories  or 
Conservatives  —  for  the  Stanley  section  of  25  votes  was 
counted  among  them  —  Lord  L.  became  sanguine  and 
thought  that  they  had  weathered  the  storm.  The  vote  on 
the  Speakership,  however,  opened  all  eyes,  and  after  that  no 
one  could  hesitate  about  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  Cabinet. 
Had  Lord  S.  joined,  the  movement  would  have  been 
arrested :  this  junction  would  have  been  a  golden  bridge 
for  rats,  of  which  there  were  numbers  who  only  wanted  a 
leader. 

This  memorandum  has  anticipated  —  anticipated  both 
in  the  order  of  the  events  which  it  narrates  and  still  more 
in  the  point  of  view  from  which  they  are  surveyed. 
When  it  was  written,  nearly  two  years  later  than  the 
time  our  narrative  has  reached,  Disraeli  had  definitely 


266  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES  [CHAP,  xin 

taken  his  place  in  the  Tory  ranks ;   at  present  all  was 
confusion  and  unsettlement  both  for  him  and  others. 

It  was  a  lively  season,  that  winter  of  1834 !  What  hopes 
what  fears,  and  what  bets !  From  the  day  on  which  Mr. 
Hudson  was  to  arrive  at  Rome  to  the  election  of  the  Speaker, 
not  a  contingency  that  was  not  the  subject  of  a  wager!  Peo- 
ple sprang  up  like  mushrooms;  town  suddenly  became  full. 
Everybody  who  had  been  in  office,  and  everybody  who  wished 
to  be  in  office;  everybody  who  had  ever  had  anything,  and 
everybody  who  ever  expected  to  have  anything,  were  alike 
visible.  All  of  course  by  mere  accident ;  one  might  meet  the 
same  men  regularly  every  day  for  a  month,  who  were  only 
'passing  through  town.'  .  .  . 

But,  after  all,  who  were  to  form  the  government,  and  what 
was  the  government  to  be  ?  Was  it  to  be  a  Tory  govern- 
ment, or  an  Enlightened-Spirit-of-the-Age  Liberal-Moderate- 
Reform  government ;  was  it  to  be  a  government  of  high 
philosophy  or  of  low  practice ;  of  principle  or  of  expediency ; 
of  great  measures  or  of  little  men  ?  A  government  of  states- 
men or  of  clerks  ?  Of  Humbug  or  of  Humdrum  ?  Great 
questions  these,  but  unfortunately  there  was  nobody  to  answer 
them.  They  tried  the  Duke;  but  nothing  could  be  pumped 
out  of  him.  All  that  he  knew,  which  he  told  in  his  curt, 
husky  manner,  was,  that  he  had  to  carry  on  the  King's  gov- 
ernment. As  for  his  solitary  colleague,  he  listened  and  smiled, 
and  then  in  his  musical  voice  asked  them  questions  in  return, 
which  is  the  best  possible  mode  of  avoiding  awkward  in- 
quiries. It  was  very  unfair  this,  for  no  one  knew  what  tone 
to  take  ;  whether  they  should  go  down  to  their  public  dinners 
and  denounce  the  Reform  Act  or  praise  it ;  whether  the  Church 
was  to  be  remodelled  or  only  admonished;  whether  Ireland 
was  to  be  conquered  or  conciliated.1 

Disraeli,  unlike  the  majority,  was  in  no  doubt  at  all 
as  to  his  opinions ;  but  he  was  still  in  great  doubt  as  to 
his  party  affiliations,  and,  decided  only  in  his  hostility 
to  the  Whigs,  was  still  straddling  between  the  extremes 
of  Toryism  on  the  one  side  and  Radicalism  on  the  other. 
The  formation  of  the  Peel  Government  had  made  a  gen- 
eral election  a  certainty,  and  he  was  of  course  anxious  to 
obtain  a  seat.  '  I  saw  your  son  yesterday,'  writes  Bulwer 

1  Coningsby,  Bk.  II.  ch.  4. 


1834]  APPEALS   TO   DURHAM  267 

to  Isaac  D'Israeli  one  day  in  the  middle  of  November, 
4  restless  and  ambitious  as  usual :  such  dispositions  always 
carve  out  their  way.'  The  son  was  indeed  determined 
to  carve  out  his  way,  and  restlessness  and  ambition 
marked  all  his  conduct  at  this  time  of  crisis.  His  first 
appeal  appears  to  have  been  addressed  to  a  high  Radical 
quarter. 

To  Lord  Durham. 

BRADENHAM  HOUSE,  HIGH  WYCOMBE, 

Monday,  Nov.  17,  1834. 

Mr  DEAR  LORD  DURHAM, 

My  electioneering  prospects  look  gloomy.  The  squires 
throughout  my  own  county  look  grim  at  a  Radical,  and  the 
Liberal  interest  is  split  and  pre-engaged  in  our  few  towns, 
that  I  fear  I  shall  fail.  At  present  I  am  looking  after  Ayles- 
bury,  where  young  Hobhouse  was  beat  last  time,  and  will 
be  beat  this,  if  he  try,  but  where,  with  my  local  influence, 
your  party  would  succeed.  If  you  have  influence  with  Hob- 
house,  counsel  him  to  resign  in  my  favour,  and  not  of  an- 
other person,  as  'tis  rumoured  he  will.  At  the  same  time 
if  Nugent  return,  he  will  beat  us  all.  So  my  dear  Lord, 
my  affairs  are  black;  therefore,  remember  me  and  serve  me 
if  you  can.  My  principles  you  are  acquainted  with ;  as  for 
my  other  qualifications,  I  am  considered  a  great  popular 
orator. 

What  do  you  think  of  the  Tories !  at  a  moment  when 
decision  and  energy  would  be  pearls  and  diamonds  to  them, 
they  have  formed  a  provisional  Government !  '  The  voice 
of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  — 
Lords.'  Such  is  Wellington's  solitary  cry ;  a  Baptist  worthy 
of  such  a  Messiah  as  —  Peel. 

In  great  haste, 

Dear  Lord  Durham, 

Your  faithful, 

BENJ.  DiSRAELi.1 

Durham's  reply  was  sympathetic.  He  had  not,  indeed, 
sufficient  acquaintance  with  Hobhouse  to  justify  his  inter- 
ference at  Aylesbury ;  but,  he  added,  '  these  are  times 
which  require  the  presence  in  Parliament,  of  every  true 

1  Reid's  Life  of  Durham,  I.,  p.  408. 


268  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xin 

and  honest  politician.  I  trust  and  hope,  therefore,  that 
you  will  find  your  way  there  yet.  If  an  occasion  offers 
when  I  can  forward  your  views  I  shall  not  fail  to  do 
so.'  Disraeli,  however,  was  in  quest  of  something  more 
substantial,  and  he  soon  turned  to  his  friends  at  the  oppo- 
site pole  of  politics. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Nov.  28, 1834. 

The  Duke  and  the  Chancellor  are  besetting  old  Carrington 
in  my  favour,  that  they  say  he  must  yield.  I  am  not  san- 
guine, but  was  recommended  to  issue  the  address.1  D'Orsay 
is  working  Bob  Smith  very  hard.  The  Duke  wrote  a  strong 
letter  to  the  chairman  of  election  committees,  saying  that 
if  Wycombe  were  not  insured  something  else  must  be  done 
for  Disraeli,  as  'a  man  of  his  acquirements  and  reputa- 
tion must  not  be  thrown  away.'  L.  showed  me  the  letter, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  things  will  go.  Entre  nous, 
Parliament  will  not  be  dissolved  as  speedily  as  is  imagined, 
which  is  all  in  my  favour,  both  as  regards  Wycombe  or  any 
other  place.  It  is  impossible  for  anyone  to  be  warmer  than 
the  Duke  or  Lyndhurst,  and  I  ought  to  say  the  same  of 
Chandos.2 

In  spite  of  all  these  blandishments  Lord  Carrington 
and  his  son  remained  courteously  obdurate,  and  Lynd- 
hurst, foiled  in  this  quarter,  employed  his  good  offices 
elsewhere,  as  the  following  entries  in  Greville's  Diary 
show :  — 

Dec.  6,  1834.  —  The  Chancellor  called  on  me  yesterday 
about  getting  young  Disraeli  into  Parliament  (through  the 
means  of  George  Bentinck)  for  Lynn.  I  had  told  him  George 
wanted  a  good  man  to  assist  in  turning  out  William  Lennox, 
and  he  suggested  the  above-named  gentleman,  whom  he  called 
a  friend  of  Chandos.  His  political  principles  must,  however, 
be  in  abeyance,  for  he  said  that  Durham  was  doing  all  he 
could  to  get  him  by  the  offer  of  a  seat,  and  so  forth ;  if  there- 
fore he  is  undecided  and  wavering  between  Chandos  and 
Durham,  he  must  be  a  mighty  impartial  personage.  I  don't 
think  such  a  man  will  do,  though  just  such  as  Lyndhurst 
would  be  connected  with. 

Dec.  7.  —  Disraeli  he  [George  Bentinck]  won't  hear  of. 

1  To  the  electors  of  High  Wycombe. 

2  Letters,  p.  88. 


1834]  THE   CRISIS   EXAMINED  269 

Eventually  Disraeli  decided  to  enter  on  a  third  contest 
at  Wycombe,  the  other  candidates  being  his  old  opponents 
Smith  and  Grey.  To  Wycombe  accordingly  he  repaired, 
and  delivered1  a  long  speech  on  the  situation,  which  he 
at  once  reissued  as  a  pamphlet  under  the  title  of  '  The 
Crisis  Examined.'  This  speech  has  an  important  place 
in  the  story  of  Disraeli's  political  development.  He 
begins  with  the  usual  assurance  of  the  fixity  of  his 
principles.  Since  he  last  addressed  them  '  great  revo- 
lutions have  occurred  —  revolutions  of  government  and 
revolutions  of  opinion  :  I  can,  however,  assure  you  that 
I  remain  unchanged.'  But  as  he  cannot  condescend 
to  obtain  even  the  honour  of  a  seat  in  Parliament  'by 
Jesuitical  intrigue  or  casuistical  cajolery,'  as  he  '  cannot 
condescend  at  the  same  time  to  be  supported  by  the 
Tories  because  they  deem  me  a  Tory,  and  by  the  Liberals 
because  they  hold  me  a  Liberal,'  he  proceeds  to  unfold 
his  programme  as  adapted  to  the  new  circumstances 
which  have  arisen.  In  the  foreground  stands  relief  for 
the  agricultural  interest,  which  is  suffering  from  severe 
depression.  '  We  may  hope  that  the  Exchequer  may 
grant  them  at  least  the  partial  relief  of  the  malt  tax, 
although  I  recommend  them  to  petition  for  the  whole. 
I  would  not  at  the  same  time  make  a  request  and  intimate 
a  compromise.'  The  popular  cry  of  the  country  is  Church 
Reform  ;  but  he  dislikes  that  '  cant  phrase,'  and  hopes  to 
hear  less  of  Church  reform  and  more  of  Church  improve- 
ment. Pluralities  must  be  abolished,  the  great  evil  of 
non-residence  must  be  terminated,  and  to  achieve  these 
all-important  objects  there  must  be  an  increase  in  'the 
value  of  the  lesser  livings  and  the  incomes  in  general 
of  the  inferior  clergy.'  Church  reform  leads  him  on  to 
Ireland. 

I  deem  it  absolutely  necessary,  even  for  the  existence  of 
the  Protestant  Establishment  itself,  that  the  question  of  the 
Irish  Church  should  be  forthwith  grappled  with;  that  it 

1  On  December  16. 


270  JOINS  THE  CONSERVATIVES  [CHAP,  xin 

should  be  the  object  of  a  measure  in  its  nature  as  final,  in  its 
operation  as  conclusive,  as  human  wit  can  devise.  It  is  now 
impossible  to  avoid,  and  too  late  to  postpone  it;  it  must  be 
met  immediately  —  the  question  is,  how  may  it  be  met  effi- 
ciently ?  Twelve  months,  therefore,  must  not  pass  over  with- 
out the  very  name  of  tithes  in  that  country  being  abolished 
for  ever;  nor  do  I  deem  it  less  urgent  that  the  Protestant 
Establishment  in  that  country  should  be  at  once  proportioned 
to  the  population  which  it  serves.  But,  gentlemen,  I  for  one 
will  never  consent  that  the  surplus  revenues  of  that  branch  of 
our  Establishment  shall  ever  be  appropriated  to  any  other  ob- 
ject save  the  interests  of  the  Church  of  England,  because  expe- 
rience has  taught  me  that  an  establishment  is  never  despoiled 
except  to  benefit  an  aristocracy.  ...  I  know  the  love 
that  great  lords,  and  especially  Whig  lords,  have  for  abbey 
lands  and  great  tithes :  I  remember  Woburn,  and  I  profit  by 
the  reminiscence. 

Then  there  are  the  claims  of  the  Dissenters. 

In  my  opinion  these  are  claims  which  must  not  be  eluded 
by  any  Government  that  wishes  to  stand.  I  would  grant 
every  claim  of  this  great  body  that  the  spirit  of  the  most  com- 
prehensive toleration  required,  consistent  with  the  established 
constitution  of  the  country.  Therefore,  I  think  that  the  regis- 
tration and  the  marriage  claims  should  be  conceded.  As  for 
the  question  of  the  church-rate,  it  is  impossible  that  we  can 
endure  that  every  time  one  is  levied,  a  town  should  present 
the  scene  of  a  contested  election.  The  rights  of  the  Establish- 
ment must  be  respected,  but,  for  the  sake  of  the  Establishment 
itself,  that  flagrant  scandal  must  be  removed.  These  are  con- 
cessions which,  I  think,  are  due  to  a  numerous  and  powerful 
portion  of  our  fellow-subjects ;  due,  I  repeat,  to  their  numbers, 
their  intelligence,  and  their  property,  and  consistent,  in  my 
opinion,  with  the  maintenance  of  an  Established  Church,  a 
blessing  with  which  I  am  not  prepared  to  part,  and  which  I 
am  resolved  to  uphold,  because  I  consider  it  a  guarantee  of 
civilisation,  and  a  barrier  against  bigotry. 

In  the  matter  of  the  Municipal  Corporations  he  is  also 
in  favour  of  reform  ;  but  what  is  to  be  his  attitude  to 
the  Government  that  had  just  been  constituted?  If 
they  will  adopt  and  carry  measures  similar  to  those  he 
has  enumerated,  he  indicates  that  he  will  be  ready  to 
support  them  ;  though,  as  Peel  had  not  yet  explained 
his  policy,  he  is  careful  not  to  commit  himself.  '  I  am 


1834]  THEORY   OF   OPPORTUNISM  271 

for  measures,  gentlemen,  and  not  men,  and  for  this  simple 
reason,  that  for  four  years  we  have  had  men  and  not 
measures,  and  I  am  wearied  of  them.'  It  was  said, 
however,  that  they  ought  not  to  accept  any  measures 
from  the  hands  of  those  who  had  opposed  the  Reform 
Bill.  But  he  shows  at  length  how  little  claim  the  Whigs 
themselves  can  lay  to  consistency  even  in  the  matter  of 
reform,  and  how  little  right  they  have  to  call  other  men 
renegades  and  apostates  :  and  then,  in  a  famous  and  daring 
passage,  he  expounds  his  doctrine  of  consistency. 

The  truth  is,  gentlemen,  a  statesman  is  the  creature  of  his 
age,  the  child  of  circumstances,  the  creation  of  his  times.  A 
statesman  is  essentially  a  practical  character ;  and  when  he 
is  called  upon  to  take  office,  he  is  not  to  inquire  what  his 
opinions  might  or  might  not  have  been  upon  this  or  that 
subject ;  he  is  only  to  ascertain  the  needful  and  the  beneficial, 
and  the  most  feasible  measures  are  to  be  carried  on.  The 
fact  is,  the  conduct  and  'the  opinions  of  public  men  at  different 
periods  of  their  career  must  not  be  too  curiously  contrasted 
in  a  free  and  aspiring  country.  The  people  have  their  passions, 
and  it  is  even  the  duty  of  public  men  occasionally  to  adopt 
sentiments  with  which  they  do  not  sympathise,  because  the 
people  must  have  leaders.  Then  the  opinions  and  prejudices 
of  the  Crown  must  necessarily  influence  a  rising  statesman. 
I  say  nothing  of  the  weight  which  great  establishments  and 
corporations,  and  the  necessity  of  their  support  and  patronage, 
must  also  possess  with  an  ambitious  politician.  All  this, 
however,  produces  ultimate  benefit ;  all  these  influences 
tend  to  form  that  eminently  practical  character  for  which 
our  countrymen  are  celebrated.  I  laugh,  therefore,  at  the 
objection  against  a  man,  that  at  a  former  period  of  his  career 
he  advocated  a  policy  different  to  his  present  one.  All  I 
seek  to  ascertain  is  whether  his  present  policy  be  just,  neces- 
sary, expedient;  whether  at  the  present  moment  he  is  pre- 
pared to  serve  the  country  according  to  its  present  neces- 
sities. 

If  on  Peel  and  his  Ministry  he  suspends  judgment,  to  the 
Whigs  he  gives  no  quarter.  He  has  always  believed  that 
they  intended  to  make  themselves  masters  for  life,  and 
they  would  certainly  have  gained  their  object  if  they  had 
succeeded  in  overpowering  the  House  of  Lords  as  they 


272  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES  [CHAP,  xin 

have  succeeded  in  packing  the  House  of  Commons.     What 
then  would  have  become  of  the  liberties  of  England  ? 

I  will  allow  for  the  freedom  of  the  Press ;  I  will  allow  for 
the  spirit  of  the  age ;  I  will  allow  for  the  march  of  intellect ; 
but  I  cannot  force  from  my  mind  the  conviction  that  a 
House  of  Commons,  concentrating  in  itself  the  whole  power  of 
the  State,  might — I  should  rather  say  would — notwithstanding 
the  great  antagonistic  forces  to  which  I  have  alluded,  estab- 
lish in  this  country  a  despotism  of  the  most  formidable  and 
dangerous  character. 

He  reminds  his  hearers  of  the  consequences  of  such  an 
arrangement  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I. 

Looking  at  such  consequences  I  think  we  may  feel  that  we 
have  some  interest  in  maintaining  the  prerogative  of  the 
Crown  and  the  privileges  of  the  Peers.  I,  for  one,  shall  ever 
view  with  jealous  eye  the  proceedings  of  any  House  of 
Commons,  however  freely  chosen. 

Already  he  sees  symptoms  of  jobbery  and  servility  in 
the  Reformed  Parliament,  and  what  of  the  Reform 
Ministry  ?  *  The  Reform  Ministry  indeed  !  Why 
scarcely  an  original  member  of  that  celebrated  Cabinet 
remained'  at  the  time  of  their  dismissal.  And  then  we 
have  the  famous  Ducrow  simile,  a  characteristic  specimen 
of  Disraeli's  early  political  eloquence,  full  of  the  broad 
humour  which  appeals  effectively  to  the  mob  and  yet 
with  the  indefinable  quality  which  suggests  the  born 
man  of  letters. 

The  Reform  Ministry !  I  dare  say,  now,  some  of  you  have 
heard  of  Mr.  Ducrow,  that  celebrated  gentleman  who  rides 
upon  six  horses.  What  a  prodigious  achievement !  It  seems 
impossible ;  but  you  have  confidence  in  Ducrow.  You  fly  to 
witness  it ;  unfortunately,  one  of  the  horses  is  ill,  and  a  donkey 
is  substituted  in  its  place.  But  Ducrow  is  still  admirable ; 
there  he  is,  bounding  along  in  a  spangled  jacket  and  cork 
slippers !  The  whole  town  is  mad  to  see  Ducrow  riding  at 
the  same  time  on  six  horses.  But  now  two  more  of  the 
steeds  are  seized  with  the  staggers,  and  lo  !  three  jackasses  in 
their  stead !  Still  Ducrow  persists,  and  still  announces  to  the 
public  that  he  will  ride  round  the  circus  every  night  on  his  six 


1834]  THE   DUCROW   SIMILE  273 

steeds.  At  last  all  the  horses  are  knocked  up,  and  now  there 
are  half-a-dozen  donkeys.  What  a  change !  Behold  the  hero 
in  the  amphitheatre,  the  spangled  jacket  thrown  on  one  side, 
the  cork  slippers  on  the  other.  Puffing,  panting,  and  perspir- 
ing, he  pokes  one  sullen  brute,  thwacks  another,  cuffs  a  third, 
and  curses  a  fourth,  while  one  brays  to  the  audience,  and 
another  rolls  in  the  sawdust.  Behold  the  late  Prime  Minister 
and  the  Reform  Ministry  —  the  spirited  and  snow-white  steeds 
have  gradually  changed  into  an  equal  number  of  sullen  and 
obstinate  donkeys ;  while  Mr.  Merryman,  who,  like  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  was  once  the  very  life  of  the  ring,  now  lies  his 
despairing  length  in  the  middle  of  the  stage,  with  his  jokes 
exhausted  and  his  bottle  empty ! 

One  can  imagine  how  this  kind  of  thing  was  relished  by 
his  audience.  *  I  stand  astonishingly  well  at  Wycombe,' 
he  wrote  to  Austen,  '  and  may  beat  the  Colonel  yet.  Had 
I  the  money,  I  might  canter  over  the  county,  for  my 
popularity  is  irresistible.'  On  the  day  following  the 
speech  at  Wycombe  he  spoke  again  at  Aylesbury  at  an 
agricultural  dinner  where  he  was  introduced  to  the 
audience  as  a  firm  friend  of  the  agricultural  interest, 
and  where  he  declared  that  his  confidence  in  the  present 
Administration  was  greatly  abated  by  the  exclusion  of 
Lord  Chandos  from  office.  The  Duke  of  Buckingham 
was  in  the  chair,  so  this  declaration  was  not  only  good 
politics  for  the  audience,  but  a  courtly  compliment  which, 
however  touched  with  irony,  was  in  the  style  Disraeli 
loved.  His  presence  at  such  a  gathering  marked  a  distinct 
advance  towards  identification  with  the  Tories  ;  and  in 
sending  the  reprint  of  the  Wycombe  speech  to  Durham, 
whom  he  had  described  in  it  as  the  only  man  of  any 
decision  of  character  in  the  Reform  Ministry,  he  shows  a 
consciousness  of  the  widening  of  the  interval  between 
them. 


As  for  the  opinions  contained  in  these  pages  [he  writes] 
they  are  those  I  have  ever  professed,  and  I  should  grieve  if  your 
Lordship's  juncture  with  the  Whigs  and  [my  ?]  continued 
resistance  to  a  party  which  has  ever  opposed  me,  even  with  a 
degree  of  personal  malignity,  should  ever  place  me  in  opposition 

VOL.  I  —  T 


274:  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES  [CHAP,  xnr 

to  a  nobleman  whose  talents  I  respect,  and  who,  I  am 
confident,  has  only  the  same  object  in  view  with  myself  — 
to  maintain  this  great  Empire  on  a  broad  democratic  basis, 
which  I  am  convinced  is  the  only  foundation  on  which  it  can 
now  rest.1 

Radicals  and  Whigs,  as  usual,  were  drawing  closer  to 
each  other  in  opposition,  and  Disraeli,  resolute  in  his 
detestation  of  the  Whigs,  was  moving  in  the  opposite 
direction  ;  but  in  Wycombe  at  all  events  he  still  clung  to 
his  Radical  friends,  and  this  third  election  was  fought 
on  the  old  basis  of  an  alliance  between  Radicals  and 
Tories.  On  the  day  of  nomination,  '  it  is  not  enough  to 
say  of  Mr.  Disraeli,'  writes  a  hostile  witness,  '  that  he 
delivered  himself  with  his  usual  ability ;  the  difficulties 
he  had  to  encounter  were  most  ably  met  and  judiciously 
avoided  ;  to  steer  between  the  shoals  of  Toryism  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  quicksands  of  Radicalism  on  the 
other  (for  he  was  supported  by  the  two  parties)  required 
his  utmost  skill,  and  well  did  he  acquit  himself.'2  All  his 
adroitness,  however,  did  not  avail  to  carry  the  election. 
When  the  poll  closed  on  January  7  the  figures  were  — 
Smith,  289. 
Grey,  147. 
Disraeli,  128. 

'It  would  be  injustice  to  Mr.  Disraeli,'  the  same  writer 
adds,  'not  to  say  that  he  conducted  himself  throughout  the 
whole  proceedings  in  the  handsomest  manner :  there  was 
a  total  absence  of  those  personalities  which  disgraced  the 
last  election  ;  and  in  his  concluding  speech  the  unfortunate 
candidate  admitted  that  he  had  had  fair  play,  and  no 
cause  to  complain.'  A  fortnight  later,  at  a  Conservative 
dinner  at  Wycombe,  with  Chandos  in  the  chair,  the  unfail- 
ing note  of  hopefulness  and  faith  was  sounded. 

I  am  not  at  all  disheartened.  I  do  not  in  any  way  feel  like 
a  beaten  man.  Perhaps  it  is  because  I  am  used  to  it.  I  will 

1  Reid's  Life  of  Durham,  I.,  p.  371. 

2  From  a  letter  in  the  Bucks  Gazette  for  Jan.  16,  1835. 


1835]  THIRD   DEFEAT   AT   WYCOMBE  275 

say  of  myself  like  the  famous  Italian  general,  who  being  asked 
in  his  old  age  why  he  was  always  victorious,  replied,  it  was 
because  he  had  always  been  beaten  in  his  youth. 


To  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 

[Jan.  7,  1835.] 

I  have  fought  our  battle  and  I  have  lost  it  by  a  majority  of 
14.1  ....  Had  Lord  Carrington  exerted  himself 
even  in  the  slightest  degree  in  my  favour  I  must  have  been 
returned ;  but  he  certainly  maintained  a  neutrality  —  a  neu- 
trality so  strict  that  it  amounted  to  a  blockade. 
Grey  made  a  violent  anti-Ministerial  speech,  and  I  annihi- 
lated him  in  my  reply ;  but  what  use  is  annihilating  men 
out  of  the  House  of  Commons.  ...  I  am  now  a  cipher  ; 
but  if  the  devotion  of  my  energies  to  your  cause,  in  and  out, 
can  ever  avail  you,  your  Grace  may  count  upon  me,  who 
seeks  no  greater  satisfaction  than  that  of  serving  a  really 
great  man.2 

From  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 

Jan.  10,  1835. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr. 
Disraeli,  and  has  received  his  letter  of  Wednesday  night, 
for  which  he  is  much  obliged.  He  very  much  regrets  the 
result  of  the  election  at  Wycombe. 

The  failure  of  this  third  attempt  at  Wycombe  seems 
finally  to  have  convinced  Disraeli  that  he  could  not  hope 
for  a  political  career  unless  he  definitely  identified  him- 
self with  one  or  other  of  the  two  great  parties  ;  and  there 
could  no  longer  be  any  doubt  as  to  which  he  would  choose. 
The  formation  of  the  Peel  Government  entirely  changed 
the  problem  for  him,  and  thousands  of  others  who  were 
still  unsettled  in  their  political  allegiance.  When  he 
published  his  Wycombe  speech  of  December  16  as  a 
pamphlet,  he  told  Austen  that  he  was  acting  by  'the 
Minister's  desire';  and  if  Peel  read  the  speech  at  all  he 
could  hardly  have  failed  to  read  it  with  approval.  On 

1  This  does  not  agree  with  the  figures  given  above,  but  those  were 
the  days  of  open  voting,  and  Disraeli  may  have  written  before  the  final 
figures  were  available. 

a  Maxwell's  Life  of  Wellington,  II.,  p.  305. 


276  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES  [CHAP,  xiu 

the  very  day  after  its  delivery  Peel  himself  submitted 
to  his  Cabinet  the  draft  of  the  address  to  his  constituents 
which  has  become  famous  in  history  as  the  Tamworth 
Manifesto,  and  there  is  a  very  remarkable  coincidence, 
for  it  can  hardly  have  been  more,  between  the  policy  of 
moderate  reform  therein  unfolded  and  the  practical 
measures  upon  which  Disraeli  had  insisted  in  his  speech. 
The  Tamworth  Manifesto  was  too  opportunist  in  its 
spirit,  too  much  of  a  programme  and  too  little  of  a  creed, 
long  to  satisfy  Disraeli ;  but  at  all  events  it  showed  that 
Toryism  had  ceased  to  spell  reaction  or  —  a  thing  even 
more  repugnant  to  one  of  his  temperament  —  stagnation, 
and  was  in  process  of  adapting  itself  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  The  greatest  obstacle  in  the  way  of  his  entering 
the  Tory  camp  had  now  been  removed,  and  not  many 
weeks  after  the  Wycombe  election  he  was  nominated l 
at  his  own  request  as  a  candidate  for  the  Carlton  Club, 
which  had  been  founded  a  few  years  before  by  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  and  his  friends,  and  had  at  once  become 
the  recognised  social  citadel  of  Toryism.  The  decisive 
step  had  now  been  taken.  He  had  been  exactly  three 
years  in  politics,  and  his  apparent  course  in  those  years 
had  been  that  of  a  political  comet,  highly  eccentric  and 
irregular.  Henceforward  his  place  in  the  political  firma- 
ment is  fixed,  or  his  orbit  at  all  events  conforms  to  the 
accepted  laws  of  political  motion. 

It  is  no  accident  that  there  is  a  certain  ambiguity  about 
the  party  affiliations  of  nearly  all  our  greater  statesmen: 
Chatham,  Pitt,  Burke,  Canning,  Peel,  Palmerston, 
Disraeli,  and  Gladstone  —  none  of  these  has  an  absolutely 
consistent  party  record  ;  and,  indeed,  a  man  with  such 
a  record  would  be  more  likely  to  win  distinction  as  a 
good  partisan  than  as  a  great  statesman.  If  we  are  to 
measure  consistency  by  ideas,  Disraeli  is  the  most  con- 
sistent of  them  all,  and  yet  more  than  any  of  the  others 
he  was  to  suffer  throughout  his  career  from  the  reputa- 
tion of  political  time-server  and  adventurer  acquired  in 
1  Lord  Strangford  proposer  and  Lord  Chandos  seconder. 


1835]  NOMINATED   FOR  THE   CARLTON  277 

these  early  and  errant  years.  In  one  sense  this  reputa- 
tion was  wholly  unjust ;  in  another  it  had  not  been  un- 
provoked nor,  indeed,  wholly  undeserved.  In  his  guiding 
principles  and  ideas  he  had  changed  far  less  than  most 
of  his  judges  and  critics,  but  the  world,  which  looks  only 
to  externals,  saw  that  he  had  been  in  communication,  if 
not  in  co-operation,  with  men  at  the  opposite  poles  of 
politics,  and  drew  its  conclusions  accordingly.  He  had 
been  too  eager  in  his  desire  for  tangible  and  immediate 
success,  too  reckless  in  his  disregard  for  the  conventions 
of  political  life  ;  and  he  had  thus  aroused  in  many  a  dis- 
trust which  he  was  never  wholly  to  allay,  and  which  to 
the  very  end  of  his  days  was  to  be  a  cause  of  weakness 
to  himself  and  a  formidable  weapon  at  the  disposal  of 
his  enemies. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Jan.  20,  1835. 

Last  Saturday  a  dinner  by  the  Chancellor  to  Lord  Abinger 
and  the  Barons  of  the  Exchequer.  There  were  also  George 
Dawson,  myself,  Praed,  young  Gladstone,  Sir  M.  Shee,  Sir  J. 
Beresford,  and  Pemberton :  rather  dull,  but  we  had  a  swan 
very  white  and  tender,  and  stuffed  with  truffles,  the  best 
company  there.1 

In  'young  Gladstone's'  recollections  of  this  dinner 
apparently  neither  the  swan  nor  Disraeli  found  a  place  ; 
but  he  noted  for  his  future  guidance  some  counsel  given 
them  by  Lyndhurst  :  '  Never  defend  yourself  before  a 
popular  assembly,  except  with  and  by  retorting  the 
attack  ;  the  hearers,  in  the  pleasure  which  the  assault 
gives  them,  will  forget  the  previous  charge  '  2  —  a  piece  of 
wisdom  which,  if  Disraeli  failed  to  note  it  at  the  time,  he 
was  afterwards,  as  Lord  Morley  reminds  us,  to  make  his 

1  Letters,  p.  90. 

2  Morley's  Life  of  Gladstone,  I.,  p.  122. 


278  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xiu 

own,  compressing  it  into  one  of  his  most  effective  phrases, 
'  Never  complain  and  never  explain. ' 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Feb.  20,  1835. 

About  last  night's  debate  [on  the  election  of  the  Speaker], 
Peel  did  not  speak  well ;  Stanley  with  great  point  and  power. 
.  .  .  O'Counell  is  so  powerful  that  he  says  he  will  be 
in  the  Cabinet.  How  can  the  Whigs  submit  to  this  ?  It  is 
the  Irish  Catholic  Party  that  has  done  all  the  mischief. 

Feb.  26. 

Here  there  is  only  one  topic,  the  division  on  the  Address. 
Peel  made  a  powerful  speech;  Stanley  constrained  and 
qualifying.  His  way  is  evidently  not  clear  ;  I  cannot  under- 
stand the  game  he  is  playing.  On  the  Speakership  he  had  no 
party.  Now  fifty  men  meet  at  his  house  every  morning. 
Lyndhurst  squabashed  Brougham  on  Tuesday. 

April  1. 

I  do  not  doubt  myself  that  the  Government  will  be  in  a 
minority  on  the  present  question,  but  this  is  not  the  cause  of 
the  malaise  of  the  Tories.  The  fact  is,  their  chief  is  worried 
by  his  wife,  and  she  is  nervous  lest  he  should  fight  and  all 
that.  There  is  no  more  reason  now  that  the  Tories  should  go 
out  than  two  months  ago,  and  I  cannot  help  believing  that 
they  will  not.  On  Sunday  I  dined  at  the  Chancellor's,  and 
ever  since  I  have  had  a  severe  cold  and  been  nowhere. 

April  4. 

I  have  not  seen  the  Chancellor  since  Thursday.  Peel  is 
much  firmer  and  the  King  quite  so,  but  his  Majesty  cannot 
sleep.  The  decisive  battle  is  to  be  fought  on  the  Irish  Tithe 
Bill,  and  we  expect  to  win.  Everybody  has  got  the  influenza; 
the  Lord  Chancellor  has  had  an  attack ;  and,  as  you  rightly 
expected,  myself,  though  mine  was  much  modified  to  former 
years.1 

The  decisive  battle,  however,  was  lost,  and  Peel  re- 
signed. We  are  now  admitted  to  some  knowledge  of  a 
curious  episode  in  unwritten  political  history. 

1  Letters,  pp.  90-92. 


1835]  A   COALITION  SCHEME  279 

In  April,  1835,  when  Sir  R.  P[eel]  resigned  and  great 
difficulties  and  time  experienced  in  forming  a  Government 
by  the  Whigs,  my  old  friend  Mrs.  Norton  opened  a  communica- 
tion with  me  in  order  to  form  a  coalition  between  the  consti- 
tutional Whigs  and  Sir  R.  P.  Melbourne  was  her  prompter, 
and  he  and  she  wished  the  affair  to  be  arranged  by  Lord 
L[yndhurst].  Lord  M.  would,  I  think,  have  thrown  over  the 
Appropriation  Clause.  He  expressed,  according  to  her,  an 
absolute  horror  of  O'Connell  —  with  whom,  he  said,  nothing 
should  induce  him  to  form  a  connexion.  He  had  authorised 
none  of  the  intrigues. 

I  had  several  conferences  with  her,  prompted  by  L.,  and 
paid  her  visits  sometimes  of  two  hours  (though  our  acquaint- 
ance otherwise  had  quite  ceased).  Admitting  the  possibility 
of  arranging  the  Appropriation  Clause,  which  of  course  rested 
with  M.,  I  enquired  whether  M.  would  serve  under  P.  She 
assured  me  he  had  positively  agreed  to  do  so,  and  that  he 
would  throw  over  Brougham  as  Chancellor  for  L. 

I  think  the  idea  of  throwing  over  B.  occurred  in  this  manner, 
as  I  know  the  resolution  was  taken  lately.  Although  our 
negotiation  failed,  very  friendly  feelings  subsisted  at  that 
time  between  M.  and  L.,  and  when  all  was  over  M.  consulted 
L.  through  Mrs.  Norton  as  to  putting  the  Seals  in  commission. 
The  difficulty  was  to  communicate  to  B.  that  he  was  thrown 
over.  At  last  M.  resolved  to  do  it  himself,  which  he  did. 
What  an  interview ! l 


To  Isaac  D' Israeli. 

Good  Friday  Morn  [April  17th],  1835. 
MY  DEAREST  FATHEB, 

The  Whigs  cannot  form  a  Government.  It  is  impossible 
to  describe  to  you  the  extraordinary  state  of  affairs.  On 
Wednesday  Mrs.  N.  sent  for  me,  and  I  was  closeted  with  her 
from  3  until  5.  Lords  Grey,  Melbourne,  and  all  the  old  con- 
stitutional aristocratic  Whigs  are  desirous  of  forming  a 
coalition  with  Peel,  Lyndhurst,  &c.  They  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  Radicals,  and  a  considerable  section  of  the 
Opposition,  headed  by  Lord  Seymour,  no  doubt  acting  under 
the  auspices  and  instigation  of  Mrs.  N.,  back  them.  They 
(Melbourne,  &c.)  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  O'Connell 
and  the  English  and  Scotch  Rads.,  and  will  not  make 
Brougham  Chancellor  or  anything.  Melbourne  disapproved 
of  the  attack  on  Manners  Sutton  and  Londonderry  and  the 

1  From  the  Memorandum  of  1836,  already  quoted. 


280  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xin 

whole  course  of  John  Russell's  career  on  the  Irish  Church. 
From  Mrs.  N.  I  went  to  the  Lord  Chancellor's,  with  whom 
I  remained  in  close  conference  until  half-past  7,  so  I  could  not 
write  to  you.  Yesterday  I  was  obliged  to  be  at  the  House 
of  Commons  until  half-past  5,  then  to  see  Lord  Seymour, 
and  afterwards  with  the  Chancellor  again  until  8  o'clock, 
so  it  was  impossible  to  write  again.  There  seem  great,  I 
fear  instiperable,  difficulties  in  the  way  of  an  immediate 
coalition,  though  eventually  it  must  take  place. 

I  cannot  say  now  whether  Peel  will  immediately  resume 
office  or  Melbourne  form  an  Administration  of  his  friends 
by  way  of  blind,  and  which  may  last  a  few  months.  But 
at  present  the  Whigs  have  absolutely  not  advanced  a  jot. 
I  need  not  say  that  we  are  all  in  the  highest  spirits,  and  that 
the  excitement  is  unparalleled.  I  think  myself  Peel  will 
be  again  sent  for  by  the  King.  If  there  be  any  more  this 
morning  and  I  have  an  opportunity  to  write  by  post,  I  will. 
That  we  shall  win  in  the  long  run,  and  triumphantly,  I  have 
no  doubt.  You  now  know  all  the  secrets  of  affairs  which 
not  ten  people  do  in  the  realm,  and  you  must  burn  this  letter 
when  read.  Mulgrave  and  the  more  useful  and  desperate 
Whiglings  are  for  pushing  on  to  Durham.  ...  I  intended 
to  have  come  down  to  Bradenham  to-day  or  to-morrow,  but 
can  say  nothing  of  my  movements  now,  as  all  is  on  my 
shoulders. 

Love  to  all, 

B.  D.1 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

April  13,  1835. 

As  coalition,  or,  as  the  Whigs  call  it,  amalgamation,  is  at 
the  present  moment  impossible,  Lord  Melbourne  has,  I  under- 
stand, formed  his  Cabinet,  and  some  of  the  writs  will  be  moved 
for  this  evening.  It  is  purely  Whig,  and  consists  entirely 
of  the  old  hacks  —  Palmerston,  Auckland,  Duncannon,  &c. 
Granville  Somerset  sent  for  me  to  the  Woods  and  Forests  this 
morning  to  say  if  there  was  a  fair  opening  the  Tories  would 
start  me,  &c.  I  was  astonished  at  his  courtesy  and  strong 
expressions  of  desire  to  see  me  in.2 

The  fair  opening  soon  presented  itself.  Mr.  Henry 
Labouchere,  the  member  for  Taunton,  vacated  his  seat 
on  his  appointment  as  Master  of  the  Mint  in  the  new 

1  From  an  original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Walter  V.  Daniell. 

2  Letters,  p.  92. 


1835]  CONTESTS  -TAUNTON  281 

Melbourne  Government,  and  at  the  last  moment  Disraeli 
was  sent  down  by  the  Tories  to  oppose  his  re-election. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Wednesday  night  [April  23]. 

There  is  no  place  like  Taunton,  not  that  I  can  win  this  time, 
for  Labouchere,  who  was  twenty-four  hours  in  advance  of 
me,  has  picked  up  many  blues  (my  colour)  ;  but  come  in  at  the 
general  election  I  must,  for  I  have  promises  of  two-thirds  of 
the  electors.  I  live  in  a  rage  of  enthusiasm  ;  even  my 
opponents  promise  to  vote  for  me  next  time.  The  fatigue  is 
awful.  Two  long  speeches  to-day,  and  nine  hours'  canvass 
on  foot  in  a  blaze  of  repartee.  I  am  quite  exhausted,  and  can 
scarcely  see  to  write. 

CASTLE,  TAUNTON, 


The  county  gentlemen  for  ten  miles  round  flock  to  me 
every  day,  but  I  am  obliged  to  decline  all  their  invitations. 
As  for  Taunton  itself,  the  enthusiasm  of  Wycombe  is  a  minia- 
ture to  it;  and  I  believe  in  point  of  energy,  eloquence,  and 
effect  I  have  far  exceeded  all  my  former  efforts.  Had  I 
arrived  twenty  hours  sooner  the  result  might  have  been  in 
my  favour.  ...  It  is  astonishing  how  well  they  are 
informed  in  London  of  all  that  passes  here,  and  how  greatly 
they  appreciate  rny  exertions.  They  have  opened  a  sub- 
scription for  me  at  the  Carlton,  headed  by  Chandos,  who  has 
written  twice  to  me  in  the  warmest  manner.  To-morrow  is 
nomination  day.1 

An  eye-witness  of  the  election  scenes  has  recorded  his 
impressions  of  the  candidate's  appearance. 

Never  in  my  life  had  I  been  so  struck  by  a  face  as  I  was  by 
that  of  Disraeli.  It  was  lividly  pale,  and  from  beneath  two 
finely-arched  eyebrows  blazed  out  a  pair  of  intensely  black 
eyes.  I  never  have  seen  such  orbs  in  mortal  sockets,  either 
before  or  since.  His  physiognomy  was  strictly  Jewish.  Over 
a  broad,  high  forehead  were  ringlets  of  coal-black,  glossy  hair, 
which,  combed  away  from  his  right  temple,  fell  in  luxuriant 
clusters  or  bunches  over  his  left  cheek  and  ear,  which  it  entirely 
concealed  from  view.  There  was  a  sort  of  half-smile,  half- 
sneer,  playing  about  his  beautifully-formed  mouth,  the  upper 

1  Ibid.,  p.  93. 


282  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xm 

lip  of  which  was  curved  as  we  see  it  in  the  portraits  of  Byron. 
.  .  .  .  He  was  very  showily  attired  in  a  dark  bottle- 
green  frock-coat,  a  waistcoat  of  the  most  extravagant  pattern, 
the  front  of  which  was  almost  covered  with  glittering  chains, 
and  in  fancy-pattern  pantaloons.  He  wore  a  plain  black 
stock,  but  no  collar  was  visible.  Altogether  he  was  the  most 
intellectual-looking  exquisite  I  had  ever  seen.1 

Now  that  he  had  definitely  emerged  as  a  Tory,  Disraeli 
heard,  of  course,  a  good  deal  about  the  ambiguity  of  his 
previous  performance.2  '  It  is  absolutely  essential,' 
wrote  D'Orsay  on  the  eve  of  the  election,  'for  you  to 
explain  to  them  that  though  a  Tory  you  are  a  reforming 
one  ;  because  it  is  generally  understood  that  you  com- 
mitted yourself  in  some  degree  with  the  other  party.' 
In  his  speech  on  nomination  day  Disraeli  essayed  the  task 
thus  proposed  to  him. 


Gentlemen,  if  there  be  anything  on  which  I  pique  myself 
it  is  my  consistency.  I  shall  be  ready  to  prove  that  con- 
sistency either  in  the  House  of  Commons  or  on  the  hustings 
at  Taunton.  Every  man  may  be  attacked  once ;  but  no  one 
ever  attacked  me  twice.  Gentlemen,  here  is  my  consistency. 
I  have  always  opposed  with  my  utmost  energy  the  party 
of  which  my  honorable  opponent  is  a  distinguished  member. 
That  party  I  have  opposed  for  reasons  I  am  prepared  to  give 
and  to  uphold.  I  look  upon  the  Whigs  as  an  anti-national 
party.  "When  I  first  entered  political  life  I  found  the  high 
places  of  the  realm  filled  by  the  party  of  which  my  opponent 
is  a  member.  I  found  they  had  an  immense  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  acquired  by  a  system  of  nomination  not 
less  equivocal  than  that  of  the  boroughmongers  they  affected 
to  destroy.  Believing  that  the  policy  of  the  party  was  such 


1  Pen  and  Ink  Sketches  of  Poets,  Preachers,  and  Politicians. 
London,  1846. 

a  There  was  much  pother  then  and  subsequently  about  a  cer- 
tain Westminster  Club  of  which  Disraeli  had  been  nominally 
a  member,  and  which  after  his  resignation  assumed  a  political 
character  and  became  the  Westminster  Reform  Club  ;  but  it 
is  now  fortunately  unnecessary  to  enter  on  the  details  of  a  tire- 
some controversy  from  which  Disraeli  emerges  quite  unscathed. 
'  Life  is  too  short,'  as  he  said  himself  in  connexion  with  this 
affair,  '  to  refute  every  misrepresentation  of  every  malicious 
fool.' 


1835]  MAINTAINS   HIS   CONSISTENCY  283 

as  must  destroy  the  honour  of  the  kingdom  abroad  and  the 
happiness  of  the  people  at  home,  I  considered  it  my  duty  to 
oppose  the  Whigs,  to  ensure  their  discomfiture,  and,  it  possible, 
their  destruction. 

Let  me  recall  to  your  recollection  the  extraordinary 
characteristic  of  the  political  world  when  I  entered 
it.  Gentlemen,  the  great  safeguard  of  our  liberties,  the 
balance  of  parties,  was  destroyed.  There  was  then  no 
constitutional  Opposition  to  keep  the  Government  in  check. 
The  great  Tory  party,  now  so  strongly  constituted,  was  a 
shattered,  a  feeble,  and  a  disheartened  fragment,  self-con- 
firming their  own  inability  to  carry  on  the  King's  Govern- 
ment, and  announcing  an  impending  revolution.  Had  I 
been  a  political  adventurer  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  join 
the  Whigs;  but,  conscientiously  believing  that  their  policy 
was  in  every  respect  pernicious,  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  oppose 
them.  But  how  were  they  to  be  opposed?  Where  were 
the  elements  of  a  party  to  keep  the  Government  in  check, 
aud  to  bring  back  the  old  constitutional  balance?  I  thought 
they  existed  in  the  Liberal  Tories,  and  in  those  independent 
Reformers  who  had  been  returned  to  Parliament  independent 
of  the  Whigs.  I  laboured  for  the  union,  and  I  am  proud  of 
it.  Gentlemen,  remember  the  Whig  policy.  They  had  a 
packed  Parliament.  They  had  altered  the  duration  of  Parlia- 
ments once  before.  They  had  the  whole  power  of  the  State 
in  their  hands.  I  believed,  and  I  still  believe,  that  we  were 
nearer  to  a  Long  Parliament  than  we  imagined.  I  wished 
to  break  the  strength  of  the  Whigs  by  frequent  elections, 
and  by  frequent  appeals  to  a  misgoverned  people;  there- 
fore I  advocated  a  recurrence  to  those  triennial  Parliaments 
which  it  was  once  the  proudest  boast  of  the  Tories  to  advo- 
cate. I  wished  to  give  the  country  gentlemen  a  chance  of 
representing  the  neighbouring  towns,  where  they  are  esteemed, 
instead  of  the  nominees  of  a  sectarian  oligarchy  ;  therefore 
I  proposed  the  adoption  of  the  ballot,  in  the  only  constitu- 
encies willing  to  assume  it.  ... 

Had  the  Whigs  remained  in  power  —  and  it  seemed 
to  me,  and  the  wisest  men  in  England  shared  my 
conviction,  that  they  were  our  masters  for  life  —  had, 
I  repeat,  they  remained  in  power  I  considered  the  dis- 
memberment of  the  empire  inevitable ;  and,  therefore,  I 
tried  to  root  them  out.  But,  Gentlemen,  great,  ay,  almost 
illimitable  as  was  my  confidence  in  Whig  incapacity,  I  confess 
they  far  surpassed  even  my  most  sanguine  expectations. 
The  mighty  Whig  party  which  had  consented  to  a  revolution 
to  gain  power  fell  to  pieces ;  the  vessel  of  the  State  righted 
itself ;  and  now  there  is  no  necessity  to  cut  away  its  masts. 


284  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xiu 

Gentlemen,  the  object  for  which  I  laboured  is  attained ;  the 
balance  of  parties  is  restored ;  and  I  do  no  longer  advocate 
the  measures  in  question,  simply  because  they  are  no  longer 
necessary.  Is  this  an  answer  ?  Is  this  inconsistency  ? l 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

April  28. 

I  have  just  left  the  hustings,  and  have  gained  the  show 
of  hands,  which  no  blue  candidate  ever  did  before.  This, 
though  an  idle  ceremony  in  most  places,  is  of  great  account 
here,  for  the  potwallopers  of  Taunton  are  as  eloquent  as  those 
of  Athens,  and  we  gain  votes  by  such  a  demonstration.2 

In  spite,  however,  of  this  demonstration,  when  the  poll 
was  closed  on  the  second  day  the  figures  were  — 

Labouchere  452 

Disraeli         282 

170 

Disraeli  did  not  perhaps  overrate  the  popularity  he  had 
acquired  during  the  election.  'His  undaunted  spirit, 
his  eloquence,  his  wit,  his  courtesy  and  kindness,'  says  a 
writer  in  the  local  paper  in  words  that  appear  to  be 
charged  with  something  more  than  conventional  eulogy, 
'have  acquired  him  the  respect  and  admiration  of  all 
parties  and  the  entire  confidence  of  his  own.'  After  the 
election  the  Conservatives  of  the  district  made  him  the 
central  figure  in  an  elaborate  festival  culminating  in 
a  banquet,  and  great  appears  to  have  been  the  enthusiasm. 
The  writer  already  quoted  was  present  at  the  banquet, 
and  has  given  us  a  minute  description  of  the  manner  of 
Disraeli's  oratory. 

He  commenced  in  a  lisping,  lackadaisical  tone  of  voice. 
.  .  .  He  minced  his  phrases  in  apparently  the  most 
affected  manner,  and,  whilst  he  was  speaking,  placed  his  hands 
in  all  imaginable  positions ;  not  because  he  felt  awkward, 
and  did  not  know,  like  a  booby  in  a  drawing-room,  where  to 

1  Dorset  County  Chronicle,  April  30,  1835. 

2  Letters,  p.  93. 


1835]  DISRAELI'S   ORATORY  285 

put  them,  but  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  to  the 
best  advantage  the  glittering  rings  which  decked  his  white 
and  taper  fingers.  Now  he  would  place  his  thumbs  in  the 
armholes  of  his  waistcoat,  and  spread  out  his  fingers  on  its 
flashing  surface ;  then  one  set  of  digits  would  be  released  and 
he  would  lean  affectedly  on  the  table,  supporting  himself 
with  his  right  hand ;  anon  he  would  push  aside  the  curls 
from  his  forehead.  .  .  .  But  as  he  proceeded  all  traces 
of  this  dandyism  and  affectation  were  lost.  With  a  rapidity 
of  utterance  perfectly  astonishing  he  referred  to  past 
events  and  indulged  in  anticipations  of  the  future.  The 
Whigs  were,  of  course,  the  objects  of  his  unsparing  satire, 
and  his  eloquent  denunciations  of  them  were  applauded  to 
the  echo.  In  all  he  said  he  proved  himself  to  be  the  finished 
orator  —  every  period  was  rounded  with  the  utmost  elegance, 
and  in  his  most  daring  nights,  when  one  trembled  lest  he  should 
fall  from  the  giddy  height  to  which  he  had  attained,  he  so 
gracefully  descended  that  every  hearer  was  wrapt  in  admiring 
surprise.  .  .  .  His  voice,  at  first  so  finical,  gradually 
became  full,  musical,  and  sonorous,  and  with  every  varying 
sentiment  was  beautifully  modulated.  His  arms  no  longer 
appeared  to  be  exhibited  for  show,  but  he  exemplified  the 
eloquence  of  the  hand.  The  dandy  was  transformed  into  the 
man  of  mind,  the  Mantalini-looking  personage  into  a  practised 
orator  and  finished  elocutionist. 


Disraeli's  speech 1  on  this  occasion  is  full  of  interest. 
It  is  the  first  in  which  we  find  the  main  lines  of  his  creed 
of  democratic  Toryism  firmly  drawn. 

He  had  told  them  once  before  that  the  Conservative  party 
was  the  really  democratic  party  in  the  country  who  surrounded 
the  people  with  the  power  of  the  Throne  to  shield  them  from 
the  undue  power  of  the  aristocracy.  .  .  .  The  point  to 
which  they  were  arrived  in  the  history  of  the  country  was 
this :  whether  the  establishments  of  the  realm  should  be 
supported  or  destroyed.  The  question  was  between  an 
hereditary  monarchy  on  one  side  and  an  elective  executive 
on  the  other.  .  .  .  He  was  in  favour  of  an  hereditary 
monarchy  because  a  King  whose  power  and  authority  were  so 
judiciously  limited  as  those  of  the  King  of  England  was  in 
effect  the  great  leader  of  the  people  against  an  usurping 
aristocracy. 

1  There  is  a  report  in  the  Dorset  County  Chronicle  for  June  4,  1835. 


286  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xm 

He  was,  he  told  them  also,  a  steadfast  supporter  of  the 
Established  Church  against 

that  misty,  ambiguous,  and  impalpable  thing,  that  spectre  of 
unsubstantiality,  rising  confusedly  from  the  realm  of  dark- 
ness, that  nameless  thing  called  by  some  'the  voluntary 
system.'  Now  when  he  who  was  a  tower  of  toleration  avowed 
that  he  was  opposed  to  this  system,  he  declared  that  he  was 
so  opposed  because  he  regarded  it  as  an  essentially  aristocratic 
system  devoted  to  the  few  and  not  to  the  many.  It  was  a 
system  that  amounted  to  this,  that  no  man  should  be  saved 
who  could  not  pay  for  salvation.  Let  them  ask  whether  this 
was  the  way  by  which  to  instruct  a  nation.  The  same  system 
that  cared  not  for  the  unrepresented  many  in  politics  cared 
little  for  the  unrepresented  many  in  religion. 


Incidentally  he  gives  unstinted  praise  to  the  policy  and 
achievements  of  the  late  Administration. 


Nowhere  in  history  could  there  be  found  an  instance  of  a 
council  of  statesmen  who  in  so  short  a  period  had  matured  a 
series  of  measures  so  vast  in  their  character,  so  beneficent  in 
their  nature,  so  conducive  to  the  prosperity  and  the  glory  of 
the  country,  as  those  which  had  been  brought  forward  by  the 
late  Ministers.  He  confessed  that,  great  as  was  his  confidence 
in  that  great  man  who  stood  at  the  helm,  and  in  his  colleagues, 
sanguine  as  were  his  hopes,  he  was  utterly  astonished  at  what 
they  did. 


The  Taunton  election  involved  Disraeli  in  a  quarrel 
which  became  too  celebrated.  The  Peel  Ministry  had 
been  overthrown  by  a  combination  between  the  Whigs 
and  O'Connell,  and  it  was  only  by  virtue  of  the  same 
combination  that  Melbourne  could  hope  to  maintain 
himself  in  office.  Inevitably  of  course  the  new  alliance 
between  politicians  who  had  been  so  recently  at  war 
became  the  great  mark  for  invective  with  Tory  orators 
and  writers,  and  Disraeli  could  be  trusted  not  to  be 
behindhand.  Alluding  to  the  subject  in  his  speech  on 
the  hustings,  he  was  reported  in  the  summarised  version 


1835J  QUARREL   WITH   O'CONNELL  287 

which  appeared  in  the  London  papers  to  have  described 
O'Connell  as  an  incendiary  and  a  traitor.  Disraeli  then 
and  ever  afterwards  maintained  that  the  summary 
misrepresented  him,  and  that  he  had  only  quoted  from 
the  Whigs  the  language  in  which  they  had  but  recently 
denounced  their  present  ally ;  and  his  explanation  is 
in  full  accord  with  the  speech  as  reported  in  all  the  local 
papers.1  The  unlucky  version,  however,  came  before 
the  eyes  of  O'Connell  and  much  incensed  him;  and 
he  seized  the  opportunity  of  a  meeting  in  Dublin  a 
few  days  later  to  take  a  savage  revenge  on  his  supposed 
assailant. 

I  must  confess,  that  some  of  the  attacks  made  on  me, 
particularly  one,  by  a  Mr.  Disraeli,  at  Taunton,  surprised 
me.  Anything  so  richly  deserving  the  appellation  of  superla- 
tive blackguardism,  or  at  all  equal  to  that  in  impudence 
and  assurance,  I  never  before  met  with.  The  annals  of 
ruffianism  do  not  furnish  anything  like  it.  He  is  an  author, 
I  believe,  of  a  couple  of  novels,  and  that  was  all  I  knew  about 
him  until  1831,  or  1832,  when  he 2  wrote  to  me,  being  about 
to  stand  for  High  Wycombe,  requesting  a  letter  of  recom- 
mendation from  me  to  the  electors.  He  took  the  letter  with 
him  to  the  place,  got  it  printed  and  placarded  all  over  the 
place.  The  next  I  heard  of  him  was  his  being  a  candidate 
for  Marylebone;  in  this  he  was  also  unsuccessful.  He  got 
tired  of  being  a  Radical  any  longer  after  these  two  defeats, 
and  was  determined  to  try  his  chance  as  a  Tory.  He  stands 
the  other  day  at  Taunton,  and  by  way  of  recommending 
himself  to  the  electors  he  calls  me  an  incendiary  and  a 
traitor.  Now,  my  answer  to  this  piece  of  gratuitous  imperti- 
nence is,  that  he  is  an  egregious  liar.  He  is  a  liar  both  in 
action  and  words.  What !  shall  such  a  vile  creature  be 
tolerated  in  England?  Shall  the  man  be  received  by  any 
constituency  who  after  coming  forward  on  two  separate 

1  The  best  report  is  that  in  the  Dorset  County  Chronicle  for  April  30, 
1835,   reprinted   in   Kebbel's   Selected   Speeches   of  Lord    Beaconsfidd. 
Here  the  word  'incendiary'  does  not  occur  at  all,  and  the  only  mention 
of  '  traitor '  is  in  a  passage  in  which  the  Whigs  are  described  as  '  that 
weak  aristocratic  party  in  the  state  who  could  only  obtain  power  by 
leaguing    themselves    with    one     whom    they    had    denounced    as    a 
traitor.' 

2  This  was  inaccurate.     The  application,  as  has  been  seen,  was  made 
through  Bulwer. 


288  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES         [CHAP,  xm 

occasions  as  the  advocate  of  certain  opinions,  now  boldly 
and  unblushingly  recants  those  principles  by  which  his 
political  life  had  been  apparently  regulated  ?  He  is  a  living 
lie :  and  the  British  Empire  is  degraded  by  tolerating  a 
miscreant  of  his  abominable  description.  The  language  is 
harsh,  I  must  confess ;  but  it  is  no  more  than  deserved,  and 
if  I  should  apologise  for  using  it,  it  is  because  I  can  find  no 
harsher  epithets  in  the  English  language  by  which  to  convey 
the  utter  abhorrence  which  I  entertain  for  such  a  reptile. 
He  is  just  fit  now,  after  being  twice  discarded  by  the  people, 
to  become  a  Conservative.  He  possesses  all  the  necessary 
requisites  of  perfidy,  selfishness,  depravity,  want  of  principle, 
&c.,  which  would  qualify  him  for  the  change.  His  name 
shews  that  he  is  of  Jewish  origin.  I  do  not  use  it  as  a  term 
of  reproach;  there  are  many  most  respectable  Jews.  But 
there  are,  as  in  every  other  people,  some  of  the  lowest  and 
most  disgusting  grade  of  moral  turpitude ;  and  of  those  I 
look  upon  Mr.  Disraeli  as  the  worst.  He  has  just  the 
qualities  of  the  impenitent  thief  on  the  Cross,  and  I  verily 
believe,  if  Mr.  Disraeli's  family  herald  were  to  be  examined 
and  his  genealogy  traced,  the  same  personage  would  be 
discovered  to  be  the  heir  at  law  of  the.  exalted  individual 
to  whom  I  allude.  I  forgive  Mr.  Disraeli  now,  and  as  the 
lineal  descendant  of  the  blasphemous  robber,  who  ended 
his  career  beside  the  Founder  of  the  Christian  Faith,  I  leave 
the  gentleman  to  the  enjoyment  of  his  infamous  distinction 
and  family  honours.1 

Vituperation  so  picturesque  was  of  course  irresistible, 
and  '  this  terrible  philippic,'  as  the  reporter  well  described 
it,  found  its  way  into  nearly  every  newspaper.  Having 
once  killed  an  antagonist  in  a  duel,  O'Connell  had  taken 
a  vow  that  lie  would  never  fight  another ;  but  this  self- 
denying  ordinance  had  not  been  accompanied  by  the 
practice  of  any  similar  self-denial  in  the  matter  of  his 
language ;  and  the  papers  had  just  been  full  of  a  quarrel 
between  him  and  Lord  Alvanley,  a  Tory  peer,  to  whom 
he  had  alluded  as  'a  bloated  buffoon.'  A  duel  had 
resulted,  in  which  Morgan  O'Connell,  the  Liberator's 
son,  had  acted  in  the  interest  of  his  father's  honour  ;  and 

1  This,  from  the  Courier  of  May  6,  1835,  was  the  version  of  O' Cou- 
ncil's speech  adopted  by  Disraeli  himself  in  an  explanatory  address  to 
the  electors  of  Taunton.  • 


1835]  A   CHALLENGE  289 

as  soon,  therefore,  as  Disraeli  saw  his  'crucifixion'   in 
The  Times  of  May  5  he  wrote  the  following  letter  :  — 

To  Mr.  Morgan  O'Connell,  M.P. 

3lA,  PARK  ST.,  GROSVENOR  SQUARE, 
Tuesday,  May  5. 

SIB, 

As  you  have  established  yourself  as  the  champion  of  your 
father,  I  have  the  honour  to  request  your  notice  to  a  very 
scurrilous  attack  which  your  father  has  made  upon  my  conduct 
and  character. 

Had  Mr.  O'Connell,  according  to  the  practice  observed 
among  gentlemen,  appealed  to  me  respecting  the  accuracy 
of  the  reported  expressions  before  he  indulged  in  offensive 
comments  upon  them,  he  would,  if  he  can  be  influenced  by 
a  sense  of  justice,  have  felt  that  such  comments  were  un- 
necessary. He  has  not  thought  fit  to  do  so,  and  he  leaves 
me  no  alternative  but  to  request  that  you,  his  son,  will  resume 
your  vicarious  duties  of  yielding  satisfaction  for  the  insults 
which  your  father  has  too  long  lavished  with  impunity  upon 
his  political  opponents. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

B.  DISRAELI. 

Morgan  O'Connell  very  reasonably  replied  that  he  was 
not  answerable  for  what  his  father  might  say,  and  that 
he  had  only  challenged  Lord  Alvanley  because  he  con- 
ceived the  latter  had  purposely  insulted  his  father. 
Thereupon  Disraeli  sent  the  following  letter  to  the 
newspapers. 

To  Mr.  Daniel  O'Connell,  M.P.  for  Dublin. 

LONDON, 

May  5. 

MR.  O'CONNELL, 

Although  you  have  long  placed  yourself  out  of  the  pale  of 
civilisation,  still  I  am  one  who  will  not  be  insulted,  even  by 
a  Yahoo,  without  chastising  it.  When  I  read  this  morning 
in  the  same  journals  your  virulent  attack  upon  myself,  and 
that  your  son  was  at  the  same  moment  paying  the  penalty 

VOL.  I U 


290  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xin 

of  similar  virulence  to  another  individual  on  whom  you  had 
dropped  your  filth,  I  thought  that  the  consciousness  that 
your  opponents  had  at  length  discovered  a  source  of  satis- 
faction might  have  animated  your  insolence  to  unwonted 
energy,  and  I  called  upon  your  son  to  re-assume  his  vicarious 
office  of  yielding  satisfaction  for  his  shrinking  sire.  But  it 
seems  that  gentleman  declines  the  further  exercise  of  the 
pleasing  duty  of  enduring  the  consequences  of  your  libertine 
harangues.  I  have  no  other  means,  therefore,  of  noticing 
your  effusion  but  this  public  mode.  Listen,  then,  to  me. 

If  it  had  been  possible  for  you  to  act  like  a  gentleman,  you 
would  have  hesitated  before  you  made  your  foul  and  inso- 
lent comments  upon  a  hasty  and  garbled  report  of  a  speech 
which  scarcely  contains  a  sentence  or  an  expression  as  they 
emanated  from  my  mouth ;  but  the  truth  is,  you  were  glad 
to  seize  the  "first  opportunity  of  pouring  forth  your  venom 
against  a  man  whom  it  serves  the  interest  of  your  party  to 
represent  as  a  political  apostate. 

In  1881,1  when  Mr.  O'Connell  expressed  to  the  electors  of 
Wycombe  his  anxiety  to  assist  me  in  my  election,  I  came 
forward  as  the  opponent  of  the  party  in  power,  and  which 
I  described  in  my  address  as  'a  rapacious,  tyrannical,  and 
incapable  faction '  —  the  English  Whigs,  who  in  the  ensuing 
year  denounced  you  as  a  traitor  from  the  Throne,  and  every 
one  of  whom,  only  a  few  months  back,  you  have  anathe- 
matised with  all  the  peculiar  graces  of  a  tongue  practised  in 
scurrility.  You  are  the  patron  of  these  men  now,  Mr. 
O'Connell :  you,  forsooth,  are  '  devoted '  to  them.  I  am 
still  their  uncompromising  opponent.  Which  of  us  is  the 
most  consistent  ? 

You  say  that  I  was  once  a  Eadical,  and  now  that  I  am 
a  Tory.  My  conscience  acquits  me  of  ever  having  deserted 
a  political  friend,  or  ever  having  changed  a  political  opinion. 
I  worked  for  a  great  and  avowed  end  in  1831,  and  that  was 
the  restoration  of  the  balance  of  parties  in  the  state,  a  result 
which  I  believed  to  be  necessary  to  the  honour  of  the  realm 
and  the  happiness  of  the  people.  I  never  advocated  a  measure 
which  I  did  not  believe  tended  to  this  result,  and  if  there  be 
any  measures  which  I  then  urged,  and  now  am  not  disposed 
to  press,  it  is  because  that  great  result  is  obtained. 

In  1831  I  should  have  been  very  happy  to  have  laboiired 
for  this  object  with  Mr.  O'Connell,  with  whom  I  had  no 
personal  acquaintance,  but  who  was  a  member  of  the  Legis- 
lature, remarkable  for  his  political  influence,  his  versatile 
talents,  and  his  intense  hatred  and  undisguised  contempt  of 
the  Whigs. 

1  A  slip,  of  course,  for  1832. 


1835]  LETTER   TO   O'CONNELL  291 

Since  1831  we  have  met  only  once  ;  but  I  have  a  lively 
recollection  of  my  interview  with  so  distinguished  a  personage. 
Our  conversation  was  of  great  length;  I  had  a  very  ample 
opportunity  of  studying  your  character.  I  thought  you  a 
very  amusing,  a  very  interesting,  but  a  somewhat  overrated 
man.  I  am  sure  on  that  occasion  I  did  not  disguise  from 
you  my  political  views :  I  spoke  with  a  frankness  which  I 
believe  is  characteristic  of  my  disposition.  I  told  you  I 
was  not  a  sentimental,  but  a  practical  politician ;  that  what 
I  chiefly  desired  to  see  was  the  formation  of  a  strong  but 
constitutional  Government,  that  would  maintain  the  Empire, 
and  that  I  thought  if  the  Whigs  remained  in  office  they 
would  shipwreck  the  State.  1  observed  then,  as  was  my 
habit,  that  the  Whigs  must  be  got  rid  of  at  any  price.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  you  were  much  of  the  same  opinion  as 
myself;  but  our  conversation  was  very  general.  We  formed 
no  political  alliance,  and  for  a  simple  reason  —  I  concealed 
neither  from  yourself,  nor  from  your  friends,  that  the  repeal  of 
the  Union  was  an  impassable  gulf  between  us,  and  that  I 
could  not  comprehend,  after  the  announcement  of  such  an 
intention,  how  any  English  party  could  co-operate  with  you. 
Probably  you  then  thought  that  the  English  Movement 
might  confederate  with  you  on  a  system  of  mutual  assistance, 
and  that  you  might  exchange  and  circulate  your  accommoda- 
tion measures  of  destruction  ;  but  even  Mr.  O'Connell,  with 
his  lively  faith  in  Whig  feebleness  and  Whig  dishonesty, 
could  scarcely  have  imagined  that  in  the  course  of  twelve 
months  his  fellow-conspirators  were  to  be  my  Lord  Melbourne 
and  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne. 

I  admire  your  scurrilous  allusions  to  my  origin.  It  is 
quite  clear  that  the  '  hereditary  bondsman '  has  already 
forgotten  the  clank  of  his  fetter.  I  know  the  tactics  of  your 
Church;  it  clamours  for  toleration,  and  it  labours  for 
supremacy.  I  see  that  you  are  quite  prepared  to  persecute. 

With  regard  to  your  taunts  as  to  my  want  of  success  in 
my  election  contests,  permit  rne  to  remind  you  that  I  had 
nothing  to  appeal  to  but  the  good  sense  of  the  people.  No 
threatening  skeletons  canvassed  for  me;  a  death's-head 
arid  cross-bones  were  not  blazoned  on  my  banners.  My 
pecuniary  resources,  too,  were  limited  ;  I  am  not  one  of  those 
public  beggars  that  we  see  swarming  with  their  obtrusive 
boxes  in  the  chapels  of  your  creed,  nor  am  I  in  possession  of  a 
princely  revenue  wrung  from  a  starving  race  of  fanatical 
slaves.  Nevertheless,  I  have  a  deep  conviction  that  the 
hour  is  at  hand  when  I  shall  be  more  successful,  and  take  my 
place  in  that  proud  assembly  of  which  Mr.  O'Connell  avows 
his  wish  no  longer  to  be  a  member.  I  expect  to  be  a  repre- 


292  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES         [CHAP,  xni 

sentative  of  the  people  before  the  repeal  of  the  Union.  "VVe 
shall  meet  at  Philippi;  and  rest  assured  that,  confident  in 
a  good  cause,  and  in  some  energies  which  have  been  not 
altogether  unproved,  I  will  seize  the  first  opportunity  of 
inflicting  upon  you  a  castigation  which  will  make  you  at  the 
same  time  remember  and  repent  the  insults  that  you  have 
lavished  upon 

BENJAMIN  DISRAELI. 

The  newspapers  of  those  days  were  anything  but 
squeamish,  and  most  of  them  published  this  letter;  and 
as  soon  as  it  appeared,  Disraeli  wrote  again  to  Morgan 
O'Connell:  — 

I  deduce  from  your  communication  that  you  do  not 
consider  yourself  responsible  for  any  insults  offered  by  your 
father,  but  only  bound  to  resent  the  insults  that  he  may 
receive.  Now,  Sir,  it  is  my  hope  that  I  have  insulted  him ; 
assuredly  it  was  my  intention  to  do  so.  I  wished  to  express 
the  utter  scorn  in  which  I  hold  his  character,  and  the  disgust 
with  which  his  conduct  inspires  me.  If  I  failed  in  conveying 
this  expression  of  my  feelings  to  him,  let  me  more  successfully 
express  them  now  to  you.  I  shall  take  every  opportunity  of 
holding  your  father's  name  up  to  public  contempt.  And  I 
fervently  pray  that  you,  or  some  one  of  his  blood,  may  attempt 
to  avenge  the  unextinguishable  hatred  with  which  I  shall 
pursue  his  existence. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

May  6, 1835. 

There  is  but  one  opinion  among  all  parties — viz.,  that 
I  have  squabashed  them.  I  went  to  D'Orsay  immediately. 
He  sent  for  Henry  Baillie  for  my  second,  as  he  thought  a 
foreigner  should  not  interfere  in  a  political  duel,  but  he 
took  the  management  of  everything.  I  never  quitted  his 
house  till  ten  o'clock,  when  I  dressed  and  went  to  the 
Opera,  and  every  one  says  I  have  done  it  in  first-rate  style. 

May  9. 

This  morning  as  I  was  lying  in  bed,  thankful  that  I  had 
kicked  all  the  O'Connells  and  that  I  was  at  length  to  have  a 
quiet  morning,  Mr.  Collard,  the  police  officer  of  Marylebone, 
rushed  into  my  chamber,  and  took  me  into  custody.  .  .  . 


1835]  THE   GENERAL   EFFECT  293 

We  all  went  in  a  hackney  coach  to  the  office,  where  I  found 
that  the  articles  were  presented  by  a  Mr.  Bennett,  residing 
in  some  street  in  Westminster,  and  an  acquaintance  of  the 
O'Connells.  We  were  soon  dismissed,  but  I  am  now  bound 
to  keep  the  peace  in  £500  sureties.  As  far  as  the  present 
affair  was  concerned,  it  was  a  most  unnecessary  precaution, 
as  if  all  the  O'Connells  were  to  challenge  me  I  could  not  think 
of  meeting  them  now.  I  consider  and  every  one  else  that  they 
are  lynched.  It  is  very  easy  for  you  to  criticise,  but  I  do  not 
regret  the  letter  :  the  expressions  were  well  weighed,  and 
without  it  the  affair  was  but  clever  pamphleteering.  Critics 
you  must  always  meet.  W.  told  me  the  last  letter  was  the 
finest  thing  in  the  English  language,  but  that  the  letter  to 
Dan  was  too  long;  others  think  that  perfect.  One  does  not 
like  the  Yahoo  as  coarse,  others  think  it  worthy  of  Swift,  and 
so  on.  .  .  .  The  general  effect  is  the  thing,  and  that 
is,  that  all  men  agree  I  have  shown  pluck.1 

His  father  and  sister  had  been  much  alarmed  by  the 
ferocity  and  vindictiveness  of  the  second  letter  to  Morgan 
O'Connell,  and  perhaps  Disraeli  himself  may  in  calmer 
moments  have  suspected  that  his  violence  had  been 
excessive. 

I  have  no  ambition  [he  wrote 2  to  the  electors  of  Taunton] 
to  be  considered  either  ferocious  or  vindictive.  ...  I 
am,  I  believe,  of  a  mild  and  tolerant  disposition,  not  too  easily 
nettled,  and  quite  ready  to  subscribe  to  a  considerable  lati- 
tude in  the  gladiatorial  encounter  between  political  opponents. 
.  .  .  If  in  those  hot  and  hurried  letters  I  indulged  in 
expressions  which  my  calmer  reason  may  disapprove,  I  am 
sure  no  candid  and  generous  spirit,  whatever  may  be  his 
party,  would  scan  with  severity  the  words  of  one  who  had 
been  subjected,  without  the  prospect  of  redress,  to  such  un- 
paralleled outrage ;  I  am  sure  no  candid  and  generous  spirit 
but  must  sympathise  with  one,  who  young,  alone,  supported 
only  by  his  own  energies,  and  the  inspiration  of  a  good  cause, 
dared  to  encounter,  in  no  inglorious  struggle,  the  most  power- 
ful individual  in  the  world  who  does  not  wear  a  crown. 

The  general  effect,  however,  was  the  thing,  and  judged 
by  this  test  the  result  was  not  unsatisfactory.  *  Row 
with  O'Connell  in  which  I  greatly  distinguish  myself  is 

1  Letters,  p.  94.  2  Address  of  May  12. 


294  JOINS   THE   CONSERVATIVES          [CHAP,  xm 

the  complacent  entry  in  the  Mutilated  Diary  a  year 
later.  The  incident  had  at  least  made  him  notorious,  and 
notoriety  to  Disraeli  was  at  this  time  as  the  breath  of 
his  nostrils.  Some  observers  may  have  thought  the  taste 
of  his  letters  questionable.  D'Orsay  declared  that  they 
were  perfection  and  added  that  everybody  agreed  with 
him  ;  and  one  of  Disraeli's  supporters  at  Wycombe  was 
so  impressed  by  their  eloquence  that  '  neither  he  nor 
his  old  father  could  sleep  all  the  night '  after  their  perusal. 
'  Scarcely  a  day  has  elapsed,'  Disraeli  wrote  l  a  month 
later,  '  on  which  I  have  not  received  letters  from  some 
part  of  the  United  Kingdom  congratulating  me  on  my 
conduct. ' 

The  charge  of  ingratitude,  skilfully  exploited  by  his 
adversaries,  is  what  did  him  most  injury,  both  then  and 
afterwards  ;  and  it  is  worth  while  repeating  his  own 
defence  :  — 

Whatever  may  be  Mr.  O'Connell's  errors,  he  has  an 
instinctive  horror  of  blockheads.  The  man  who  talks  or 
writes  of  my  ingratitude  to  Mr.  O'Connell  only  perverts  our 
language  and  makes  himself  ridiculous.  Mr.  O'Connell,  not 
at  my  written  request,  as  he  has  been  falsely  represented  to 
have  stated,  but  at  the  verbal  request  of  a  third  person, 
wrote  a  commonplace  letter  to  the  electors  of  Wycombe  in 
my  favour  when  opposed  to  Colonel  Grey,  the  son  of  the  Whig 
Prime  Minister.  The  letter  did  me  no  good,  but  the  reverse, 
but  it  was  one  of  those  slight  courtesies  of  life,  whatever 
might  be  its  motives,  of  which  a  gentleman  would  always  be 
prepared  to  show  his  sense  by  courtesies  as  slight.  When 
therefore,  long  after,  I  for  the  first  and  only  time  met  Mr. 
O'Connell,  who,  in  the  meantime,  had  become  a  Repealer,  I 
thanked  him  for  his  courtesy,  and  however  we  differed  in 
politics,  I  seized  with  pleasure  that  opportunity  of  being  civil 
to  him ;  and  very  recently  when  I  met  his  most  intimate 
friend,  Mr.  Ronayne.2  ...  I  wished  to  show  by  the 
tone  of  my  conversation  that,  however  I  was  opposed  to  him 

1  Letter  to  the  electors  of  Taunton,  June  13,  1835. 

2  In   a  letter  to   the   Morning    Chronicle  dated  May  3,  1835,  this 
gentleman     declared     that    Disraeli     'had    within     the    last    month 
spoken    to    him    in    terms    of    the    most    extravagant    admiration    of 
O'Connell,'    to   whom  also  he  had  asked  him   'to   communicate   his 
kind  remembrances.' 


1835]  A  MESSAGE   OF  PEACE  295 

or  his  friend  in  public  life,  I  was  far  from  desirous  of  con- 
ducting myself  towards  them  in  a  hostile  spirit  when  we  met 
in  serener  situations  than  the  hustings  or  the  House  of 
Commons.  ...  In  the  tone  of  courtesy  I  then  used 
I  should  have  ever  spoken  of  Mr.  O'Connell,  had  not  he, 
from  the  intentional  misrepresentations  of  some  busy  fools 
in  London,  thought  proper  to  make  his  notorious  attack 
upon  me  in  Dublin.1 

The  following  note,  written  in  the  early  sixties,  though 
it  anticipates,  may  be  given  here  as  an  epilogue. 

Croker,  Peel,  and  O'Connell  sent  me,  I  may  say,  messages 
of  peace  before  they  died  —  literally  O'Connell.  He  was  so 
delighted  with  my  smashing  of  Peel,  and  so  glad,  perhaps, 
that  he  had  escaped  what  I  once  threatened  and  he  now  found 
I  could  do,  that  he  sent  me  a  message  that  it  had  always  been 
heavy  on  his  heart  that  there  should  have  been  a  misunder- 
standing between  us,  and  that  he  had  long  known  that  he 
had  been  misinformed  and  misled  in  the  matter.  I  sent  him 
a  very  courteous  reply :  but  avoided  any  personal  communi- 
cation. He  always  made  me  a  very  reverential  bow  after- 
wards. 

To  Dawson  Turner.2 

May  29,  1835. 

All  this  vulgar  electioneering  bustle  is  not  worth  a  few  calm 
hours  in  your  magnificent  library  among  those  collections  of 
which  you  have  good  cause  to  be  proud;  but  we  are  the 
creatures  of  circumstances,  and  as  far  as  Destiny  and  tobacco 
are  concerned  I  am  a  decided  Orientalist.3 

1  Letter  to  the  electors  of  Taunton,  June  13,  1835. 

2  Botanist  and  Antiquary.     His  library  and  collection  of  manuscripts 
were  famous. 

8  From  a  letter  in  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison's  collection. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

POLITICAL  WHITINGS 
1835-1836 

During  the  next  couple  of  years  Disraeli's  political 
activity  was  mainly  with  the  pen.  He  had  a  mind  of  the 
complexion  that  will  not  allow  a  man  to  feel  at  ease  in 
a  fresh  position  till  he  has  framed  a  theory  to  account  for 
it  ;  and  now  that  he  had  become  a  Tory  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  justify  his  faith  both  to  himself  and  to  the  world. 
The  times  and  the  Tory  party  alike  called  for  guidance : 
in  his  own  words,  it  was  '  a  perplexed,  ill-informed,  jaded 
and  shallow  generation.'  The  reaction  which  followed 
the  high  idealism  and  strenuous  efforts  of  the  French  Revo- 
lutionary era  had  produced  the  Benthamite  philosophy 
and  the  Ricardian  political  economy,  and  when  Disraeli 
entered  public  life  these  systems  had  just  emerged  from 
their  period  of  struggle  as  the  peculiar  possession  of  an  un- 
popular sect,  and  attained  to  that  position  of  dominating 
influence  over  the  mind  of  England,  and  especially  over 
the  mind  of  the  English  middle  class,  which  they  were 
to  retain  for  nearly  fifty  years.  It  was  only  in  the 
eighth  decade  of  the  century,  after  Disraeli  himself  had 
overthrown  the  ascendancy  of  the  middle  class,  and  when 
for  the  greater  part  of  the  decade  he  was  Prime  Minister 

296 


1833]  THE   COUNTER   REVOLUTION  297 

of  England,  that  the  authority  of  these  systems  began 
seriously  to  be  shaken.  His  active  career  coincides  closely 
with  the  period  of  their  dominion,  and  in  his  life,  his 
writings,  and  his  achievements  he  stands  for  all  that  is 
their  spiritual  antithesis,  at  war  with  them  throughout 
the  whole  range  of  their  influence.  Not  that  he  was  the 
only  or  even  the  first  antagonist  in  the  field.  The 
Reform  Act  of  1832  had  marked  the  triumph  of  the 
commercially-minded  middle  class  with  their  unimagi- 
native ideals.  In  the  summer  of  1833  Newman,  with 
*  fierce  thoughts  against  the  Liberals,' 1  hastened  home 
from  the  Mediterranean,  writing  '  Lead,  kindly  Light ' 
in  the  orange  boat  that  carried  him  from  Palermo  to 
Marseilles,  to  begin  the  Oxford  movement ;  and  in  the 
winter  of  the  same  year  the  book  which  Carlyle  had 
'hawked'  round  the  publishers  of  London  appeared  in 
Freezer's  Magazine  under  the  title  of  Sartor  Resartus. 
Newman,  Carlyle,  and  Disraeli  were  far  different  figures  ; 
but,  little  as  they  may  have  known  it,  they  were  in  a  sense 
spiritual  brethren,  engaged  in  a  desperate  fight  against 
a  common  enemy,  working  in  their  several  ways  with  a 
common  purpose.  Beneath  a  thousand  superficial  differ- 
ences they  had  all  three  the  same  romantic  temperament  ; 
all  three  had  in  them  something  of  the  artist ;  and  all 
three  were  deeply  imbued  with  that  historical  senti- 
ment which  is  the  fatal  enemy  of  Benthamism,  as  of 
every  kind  of  system-mongering.  Disraeli's  sphere  of 
operations  being  primarily  political,  in  his  case  the  prophet 
and  the  teacher  had  to  wear  the  livery  and  submit  to  the 
routine  of  the  practical  politician  and  statesman  ;  but, 
though  it  may  have  happened  not  infrequently  that  in 
appearance  at  all  events  he  postponed  the  higher  to 
the  lower,  he  was  nevertheless  in  the  conflict  in  which 
all  were  engaged  not  the  least  potent  and  effective  of 
the  three. 

1  Apologia,  p.  33,  '  It  was  the  success  of  the  Liberal  cause  which 
fretted  me  inwardly.  I  became  fierce  against  its  Instruments  and  its  mani- 
festations.' 


298  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

Politically  the  Utilitarian  doctrines  were  throughout 
the  period  of  their  prevalence  an  appanage  of  the  Liberal 
party,  and  in  the  political  sphere  accordingly  the  problem 
of  resistance  was  to  recreate  the  Tory  party  so  as  to 
make  it  a  bulwark  against  all  that  was  devastating  in 
the  philosophy  of  the  hour.  This  was  the  problem  that 
presented  itself  to  Peel  after  the  Reform  Bill,  and  his 
assumption  of  office  in  1834  is  therefore  a  critical  event 
in  the  history  of  English  parties. 

In  1834  England,  though  frightened  at  the  reality  of 
Reform,  still  adhered  to  its  phrases ;  it  was  inclined,  as 
practical  England,  to  maintain  existing  institutions ;  but,  as 
theoretical  England,  it  was  suspicious  that  they  were 
indefensible.  No  one  had  arisen,  either  in  Parliament,  the 
Universities,  or  the  Press,  to  lead  the  public  mind  to  the 
investigation  of  principles  ;  and  not  to  mistake,  in  their  refor- 
mations, the  corruption  of  practice  for  fundamental  ideas. 
It  was  this  perplexed,  ill-informed,  jaded,  shallow  generation, 
repeating  cries  which  they  did  not  comprehend,  and  wearied 
with  the  endless  ebullitions  of  their  own  barren  conceit,  that 
Sir  Robert  Peel  was  summoned  to  govern.  It  was  from  such 
materials,  ample  in  quantity,  but  in  all  spiritual  qualities 
most  deficient;  with  great  numbers,  largely  acred,  Consoled 
up  to  their  chins,  but  without  knowledge,  genius,  thought, 
truth,  or  faith,  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  to  form  a  '  great 
Conservative  party  on  a  comprehensive  basis.'1 

Disraeli,  as  we  have  seen,  in  his  last  speech  at 
Taunton  praised  in  the  highest  terms  the  policy 
and  measures  of  the  Peel  administration ;  but  his 
maturer  view,  the  view  of  Coningsby,  was  that  the  whole 
attempt  was  premature,  precipitated  by  '  the  tactics  of 
those  short-sighted  intriguers  who  persisted  in  looking 
upon  a  revolution  as  a  mere  party  struggle,  and  would 
not  permit  the  mind  of  the  nation  to  work  through  the 
inevitable  phases  that  awaited  it.'  The  result  was  that 
Peel,  though  he  did  his  work  of  reconstructing  the  Tory 
party  like  a  'dexterous  politician,'  failed  to  realise 
c  those  prescient  views  of  a  great  statesman  in  which  he 

1  Coningsby,  Bk.  II.  ch.  4. 


1834]  PEEL'S   FAILURE  299 

had  doubtless  indulged,  and  in  which,  though  still  clogged 
by  the  leadership  of  1834,  he  may  yet  find  fame  for 
himself  and  salvation  for  his  country.'  These  last  words 
are  probably  nothing  more  than  conventional  homage 
to  a  leader  whom  the  writer  still  acknowledged,  and  one 
seems  to  detect  in  them  that  note  of  grave  irony  which 
is  so  often  heard  from  Disraeli.  When  they  were  written 
in  1844  Disraeli  was  well  aware  that  Peel  was  not  the 
man  for  a  great  constructive  work  such  as  the  formation 
of  a  Conservative  party  on  a  comprehensive  basis.  He 
had  already  come  to  see  that  the  Tamworth  manifesto 
was  an  attempt  to  construct  a  party  without  principles  ; 
its  basis  '  Latitudinarianism'  ;  its  inevitable  consequence 
'Political  Infidelity.' 

There  was  indeed  a  considerable  shouting  about  what  they 
called  Conservative  principles ;  but  the  awkward  question 
naturally  arose,  what  will  you  conserve  ?  The  prerogatives 
of  the  Crown,  provided  they  are  not  exercised;  the  independ- 
ence of  the  House  of  Lords,  provided  it  is  not  asserted ;  the 
Ecclesiastical  estate,  provided  it  is  regulated  by  a  commis- 
sion of  laymen.  Everything,  in  short,  that  is  established,  as 
long  as  it  is  a  phrase  and  not  a  fact.1 

Peel,  in  fact,  was  a  political  opportunist,  disinterested 
and  therefore  with  a  certain  nobility  in  his  opportunism, 
but  still  essentially  an  opportunist,  a  man  who  lived 
without  ideas.  Disraeli,  if  any  one  will  have  it  so,  may 
in  the  stress  of  practical  politics  have  sunk  at  times  to 
an  opportunism  that  was  less  disinterested  than  Peel's, 
and  therefore  more  ignoble  ;  but  he  was  never  without 
ideas  or  the  courage  to  follow  their  guidance.  He  had 
what  Peel  signally  lacked,  the  creative  mind,  and  for 
him  therefore  was  reserved  the  task  at  which  Peel  so 
disastrously  failed. 

Between  men  so  different  in  temperament  and  in 
mental  constitution  antagonism  from  the  first  was 
perhaps  almost  inevitable.  A  division  of  tendency  soon 

1  Coningsby,  Bk.  II.  ch.  5.. 


300  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

declared  itself  in  the  reconstituted  Tory  party,  and 
Disraeli  not  many  months  after  his  enrolment  found 
himself  in  the  opposite  camp  to  his  newly  accepted 
leader.  It  was  a  case  in  which  Peel's  policy  seemed  to 
him  to  be  '  the  conservation  of  the  independence  of  the 
House  of  Lords  provided  it  is  not  asserted.'  The 
principal  measures  of  the  Melbourne  Government  in 
the  Session  of  1835  were  the  Irish  Tithes  Bill  and  the 
Municipal  Corporations  Bill.  Both  parties  were  agreed 
as  to  the  policy  of  the  conversion  of  the  Irish  tithes  into 
a  rent-charge  ;  but  through  the  clumsy  strategy  of  the 
Whig  leaders  the  Peel  Ministry  had  been  overthrown,  not 
on  a  vote  of  want  of  confidence  nor  on  any  question  that 
was  worth  fighting  for,  but  on  a  motion  asserting  the 
barren  principle  of  the  appropriation  of  the  surplus 
revenues  of  the  Irish  Church  to  secular  purposes. 
Eventually,  in  1838,  the  difficulty  was  settled  exactly 
on  the  lines  of  Peel's  original  proposals,  but  for  the 
present  the  Whig  Ministers  clung  to  this  principle  of 
appropriation  with  what  even  the  Whig  historian  is 
constrained  to  call  'factious  folly.'1  In  the  present 
Session  they  carried  through  the  House  of  Commons  a 
Tithe  Bill  in  which,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  Peel, 
appropriation  found  a  place,  and  when  the  House  of 
Lords,  under  the  guidance  of  Lyndhurst,  expunged  the 
offensive  clauses,  Ministers  abandoned  the  Bill.  On  the 
question  of  the  English  municipal  corporations  the  two 
Houses  again  came  into  sharp  collision.  In  his  speech  at 
Taunton  in  June  Disraeli  had  spoken  contemptuously  of 
the  Bill  as  '  a  measure  of  such  utter  insignificance  that  he 
hoped  the  Conservatives  would  not  condescend  to  oppose 
it '  ;  but  he  soon  found  himself  strenuously  supporting 
Lyndhurst  in  a  campaign  for  converting  the  Government 
proposals  into  'a  conservative  arrangement.'  Under 
Lyndhurst's  direction  the  Bill  was  drastically  amended  in 
the  House  of  Lords ;  but  Peel,  who  had  approved  of 
its  main  principles  during  its  passage  through  the  House 

1  Walpole's  History,  III.,  p.  312. 


1835]  LYNDHURST   AND   PEEL  301 

of  Commons,  was  known  to  have  little  sympathy  with  the 
action  of  his  late  Chancellor,  and  when  the  measure  came 
back  to  the  Commons  he  separated  himself  from  the  Lords 
on  some  important  points,  though  duly  laying  stress  on 
their  privileges  and  independence.  Ultimately  a  com- 
promise was  arranged  which,  while  making  large  conces- 
sions to  the  wishes  of  the  Upper  House,  secured  the 
adoption  of  the  Government  plan  in  most  of  its  important 
features  ;  but  the  compromise  did  not  prevent  a  good  deal 
of  angry  declamation  against  the  Lords  during  the  Parlia- 
mentary recess  or  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Radicals 
to  revive  the  old  Reform  cry  of  '  the  Bill,  the  whole  Bill, 
and  nothing  but  the  Bill.'  The  country,  however,  refused 
to  respond,  and  in  spite  of  the  Radicals,  and  to  some  ex- 
tent in  spite  of  Peel,  the  session  had  for  result  that  the 
Lords,  whose  prestige  had  been  almost  destroyed  by  the 
passage  of  the  Reform  Act,  had  now  successfully  vindi- 
cated the  independence  of  their  chamber  and  reasserted 
its  rights  as  an  organic  part  of  the  working  constitution. 

It  appears  to  be  the  case  that  during  this  crisis  the 
King,  who  was  still  eagerly  seeking  for  a  way  in  which 
to  rid  himself  of  his  hated  Whig  Ministers,  applied  to 
Lyndhurst  to  assist  him  if  Peel  should  refuse  ;  and  the 
terms  on  which  Lyndhurst  was  to  become  Prime  Minister 
were  discussed  and  informally  arranged.  Throughout 
these  events  Disraeli  was  in  the  closest  touch  with  Lynd- 
hurst, and  his  account l  of  the  transaction  is  to  be  found 
in  a  fragment  among  his  papers  written  in  the  following 
year. 

It  was  in  this  session  [1835]  that  Lord  L[yndhurst]  first 
formed  his  great  plan  of  stopping  the  movement.  Tried 

1  See  also  the  remarkable  memoir  of  Lyndhurst  that  appeared  in 
The  Times  of  Oct.  13,  1863,  the  day  after  his  death.  The  disclosures 
of  this  memoir  were  commonly  attributed  to  Disraeli,  who  was 
known  to  have  been  in  Lyndhurst's  confidence  during  the  events  in 
question  ;  but  though  in  full  agreement  with  his  own  account,  they 
surprised  Disraeli  himself,  and  were  most  probably  derived  from 
Barnes,  who  was  Editor  of  The  Times  in  1835,  and  in  close  com- 
munication with  Lyndhurst. 


302  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

upon  the  English  Municipal  Reform  Bill  as  a  basis.  His 
triumphant  and  able  career  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Jealousy 
of  Peel.  Lyndhurst  determines  to  accept  the  Premiership 
if  offered,  having  received  hints  from  Windsor.  His  plan 
to  make  Brougham  Chancellor  —  to  demand  from  his  party 
10  seats  in  the  Commons,  which  were  to  be  given  to  10  young 
men  whom  he  should  select.  I  was  one,  Bickham  Escott 
another,  Thesiger  a  third.  The  Commons  to  be  led  by  Sir 
James  Graham,  whom  he  had  sounded,  and  Sir  William 
Follett,  in  whom  he  had  great  confidence.  Peel  came  up 
from  Drayton  and  threw  him  over,  and  a  party  in  the  Lords, 
led  by  Wharncliffe,  frightened  at  not  being  supported  in  the 
Commons,  receded  from  their  engagement  at  a  meeting  at 
Apsley  House  at  the  end  of  August  or  beginning  of  Sep- 
tember. 

The  D[uke]  of  Wellington]  would  have  been  firm  in  spite 
of  Peel  and  accepted  office  if  Wharncliffe  and  his  friends 
had  not  seceded.  The  secession  was  only  private.  L.'s 
final  speech  at  the  close  of  the  business,  and-  Brougham's 
complimentary  oration  to  him,  surprised  everybody,  but  the 
truth  is  there  was  an  understanding  between  B.  and  L. 
After  the  debates  they  generally  went  home  together,  and 
once  B.  said :  '  You  and  I,  Lyndhurst,  can  rule  this  country 
if  we  like.'  Before  L.'s  final  speech  B.  took  him  aside  and 
shook  hands  with  him  with  great  feeling  and  said:  'Let 
us  embrace.  We  are  both  Ex-Chancellors  and  have  both 
been  thrown  over  by  our  party.' 

The  consequence  of  Peel's  conduct  was  the  inevitable 
demonstration  apparently  in  favour  of  the  WThigs  by  the 
corporation  elections  in  November.  This  alone  saved  the 
Cabinet.  They  had  become  so  unpopular  in  the  country, 
and  the  H[ouse]  of  L[ords]  had  so  rallied,  even  in  spite  of 
Peel,  and  had  done  so  much  that  in  the  autumn  all  the  elections 
went  against  the  Whigs.  Ten  days  or  so  before  the  municipal 
elections  was  the  death  of  Lord  Milton  and  the  Northampton- 
shire election.  The  blow  was  so  great  that  I  heard  from  a 
good  authority  that  the  Ministers  did  not  intend  to  meet 
Parliament. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

July  20,  1835. 

Nothing  has  been  talked  of  but  the  great  fancy  ball  which 
came  off  last  night,  and  exceeded  in  splendor  anything 
ever  known  in  London.  My  dress  was  very  good,  with  some 
additions,  such  as  a  silken  shirt  with  long  sleeves,  lent  me 
by  Henry  Baillie.  D'Orsay,  Henry  Bulwer,  myself,  Massey 


1835]  A  FANCY  BALL  SOS 

Stanley,  Talbot,  Herbert,  and  Regina  went  in  a  party  with 
the  Chesterfields,  Ansons,  and  Worcesters.  We  flattered 
ourselves  we  were  by  far  the  most  distinguished  there.  Lady 
Chesterfield  was  a  Sultana,  and  Mrs.  Auson  a  Greek,  with 
her  own  hair  lower  than  the  calf  of  her  leg.  She  was  the 
most  brilliant  in  the  room.  Lady  Burghersh,  Lady  Fitzroy 
Somerset,  and  Lady  Sykes  wore  powder  —  the  two  first 
Louis  XIV.,  the  last  a  complete  copy  of  a  Sir  Joshua.  Lady 
Londonderry,1  as  Cleopatra,  was  in  a  dress  literally  embroidered 
with  emeralds  and  diamonds  from  top  to  toe.  Castlereagh 
introduced  me  to  her  by  her  desire,  and  I  was  with  her  a 
great  deal.  Mrs.  Norton  and  Mrs.  Blackwood  beautiful 
Greeks ;  but  the  finest  thing  was  that  at  half-past  two  Lynd- 
hurst  gave  a  supper  in  George  Street  to  eighty  of  the  supremest 
ton  and  beauty,  and  you  can  conceive  nothing  more  brilliant 
than  his  house  illuminated  with  a  banquet  to  a  company  so 
fancifully  dressed.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  was  at 
the  ball,  was  too  tired  to  come.  This  great  secession  rather 
knocked  up  the  ball,  however,  and  everybody  looked  blue 
who  was  not  going  to  Lyndhurst's.  He  looked  like  a  French 
marshal.  Wilton  was  Philip  IV.,  and  the  Duke  lent  him  his 
Golden  Fleece  set  in  diamonds  for  the  evening. 

July  24. 

I  have  since  dined  at  Rosebank  with  the  Londonderrys. 
'Tis  the  prettiest  baby-house  in  the  world  —  a  pavilion  rather 
than  a  villa,  all  green  paint,  white  chintz,  and  looking-glass. 
The  grounds,  however,  are  considerable,  and  very  rich,  border- 
ing the  Thames.  The  dinner  was  admirable,  but  no  plate; 
porcelain,  fresh  as  the  room,  with  a  bouquet  by  every  guest, 
and  five  immense  pyramids  of  roses  down  the  table.  .  .  . 
Lyndhurst  was  quite  delighted  with  his  visit,  and  certainly 
Bradenham  never  looked  to  greater  advantage.  Yesterday 
he  and  I  went  to  Richmond. 

Aug.  5. 

I  can  hardly  trust  myself  to  write  about  politics;  the 
debate2  was  dashing  in  the  extreme.  Lyndhurst's  speech 
by  far  the  crack  one — most  bold  and  triumphant,  and 

1  Daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir  Henry  Vane-Tempest  and  second  wife  of 
the  3rd  Marquis  of  Londonderry. 

2  Of  August  3  in  the  Lords,   on  the  motion  that  the  House  should 
go  into  Committee   on  the  Municipal    Corporations   Bill.     An  amend- 
ment was  moved  from  the  Tory  benches  that  the   House,    which  had 
already    heard  counsel     in     behalf    of    the    corporations,   should  now 
receive  evidence,  and  this  amendment,  supported  by  Lyndhurst,  was 
carried  against  the   Government. 


304  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

received  with  tumultuous  cheering.  I  can  give  you  no  idea 
of  the  excited  and  at  the  same  time  depressed  state  of 
Melbourne.  He  seemed  quite  wild  and  scared.  Brougham 
spoke  very  well,  but  his  conduct  is  perplexing.  He  rather 
assists  us  than  the  reverse.  The  course  taken  was  kept 
secret,  and  perfectly  confounded  the  Whigs.  It  is  an  awful 
crisis  whatever  may  be  the  result.  I  cannot  think  of  the  hot 
weather  or  anything  else. 

Aug.  12,  1835. 

Lyndhurst  has  been  very  ill,  and  unable  to  go  to  the  Lords, 
where  he  ought  not  to  be  absent  a  moment,  as  all  depends 
upon  him.  However,  Saturday  and  Sunday's  nursing  brought 
him  round.  The  Duke  has  formally  resigned  to  him  the 
leadership  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  there  is  every  proba- 
bility of  his  being  Prime  Minister;  his  own  disinclination 
alone  stands  in  the  way.  To-morrow  the  war  begins  in  the 
Lords.  The  speeches  of  counsel  made  a  great  impression ; 
the  evidence  was  capital,  the  Lords  united,  and  Lyndhurst 
has  with  his  own  hand  drawn  up  their  counter  project.  .  .  . 
But  for  him  all  would  have  been  lost,  and  now  everybody 
praises  the  stand  the  Lords  have  made,  and  the  Whigs  have 
entirely  failed  in  getting  up  a  crisis. 

Aug.  14. 

There  was  a  sharp  engagement  in  the  House  of  Lords  last 
night.  Melbourne  is  evidently  so  annoyed  that  I  cannot 
help  fancying  he  will  come  down  to-night  and  withdraw  the 
Bill.  .  .  .  Brougham  was  terribly  tipsy.  He  shook  his 
fist  at  Lord  Wicklow,  and  quoted  Ciceronian  braggadocios. 
.  .  .  After  all  this  is  over,  Lyndhurst  will  like  to  come 
down  with  me  for  a  quiet  week  at  Bradenham.1 

Aug.  20. 

I  have  sent  you  the  Morning  Post  every  day,  which  is  the 
only  paper  now  read,  and  in  whose  columns  some  great 
unknown  has  suddenly  risen,  whose  exploits  form  almost  the 
sole  staple  of  political  conversation,  and  all  conversation  is 
now  political.  The  back  numbers  for  the  last  week  cannot  be 
obtained  for  love  or  money,  and  the  sale  has  increased  nearly 
one-third.  All  attempts  at  discovering  the  writer  have  been 
baffled,  and  the  mystery  adds  to  the  keen  interest  which  the 
articles  excite.2 

1  '  Lord  Lyndhurst'  s  visits  this  year  to  Bradenham  and  our  increas- 
ing   friendship '    is    the  corresponding  entry    in  the    Mutilated  Diary. 
2  Letters,  pp.  96-98. 


1835]  LEADER  WRITING  305 

The  mystery,  if  any  mystery  there  be,  is  solved  by 
another  entry  in  the  Mutilated  Diary  :  '  Write  the  M.P. 
during  the  English  Municipal  Bill  for  L.  —  three  leading 
articles  a  day  for  nearly  a  month.'  The  articles,  which 
have  been  preserved  in  a  book  of  cuttings,  are  in  the 
strain  of  reckless  vituperation  which  was  then  the  fashion 
even  in  responsible  journals,  with  only  here  and  there  a 
flash  of  wit  or  a  happy  phrase  to  redeem  the  person- 
alities. That  '  meagre-minded  rebel  Roebuck ' l  has 
something  perhaps  of  the  true  Disraelian  touch ;  but 
what  would  be  thought  to-day  of  a  newspaper  that 
described  a  great  officer  of  State  as  '  this  shrewd,  coarse, 
manoeuvring  Pict,'  'this  base-born  Scotchman,'  'this 
booing,  fawning,  jobbing  progeny  of  haggis  and  cocka- 
leekie,'  the  pleasant  labels  affixed  in  the  articles  to  the 
Attorney-General,  Campbell.2  For  argument  there  is 
a  great  deal  of  the  doctrine  that  the  House  of  Commons 
is  no  more  representative  of  the  people  than  is  the  House 
of  Lords  ;  but  the  constitutional  theories  which  Disraeli 
was  now  evolving  we  shall  find  more  systematically  set 
forth  in  a  work  which  was  shortly  to  appear  and  which 
must  presently  engage  our  attention. 

To  Lady  Blessington. 

BEADENHAM, 

Oct.  4  [1835]. 

I  see  by  the  papers  that  you  have  quitted  the  shores  of  the 
'far-resounding  sea'  and  resumed  your  place  in  the  most 
charming  of  modern  houses.  I  therefore  venture  to  recall 
my  existence  to  your  memory,  and  request  the  favour  of 
hearing  some  intelligence  of  yourself,  which  must  always 
interest  me.  Have  you  been  well,  happy,  and  prosperous? 
And  has  that  pen,  plucked  assuredly  from  the  pinion  of  a 
bird  of  paradise,  been  idle  or  creative  ?  My  lot  has  been  as 
usual  here,  tho'  enlivened  by  the  presence  of  Lady  .Sykes, 
who  has  contrived  to  pay  us  two  visits,  and  the  presence  of 

1  The  '  meagre-minded  rebel '  before  his  death  was  made  a  Privy  Court 
cillor  by  Disraeli. 

2  Afterwards  Lord  Campbell. 


VOL.  i  —  x 


306  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

Lord  Lyndhurst,  who  also  gave  us  a  fortnight  of  his  delightful 
society.  I  am  tolerably  busy,  and  hope  to  give  a  good 
account  of  myself  and  doings  when  we  meet,  which  I  trust 
will  be  soon.  How  goes  that  '  great  lubber '  the  Public,  and 
how  fares  that  mighty  hoax,  the  World  ?  Who  of  our 
friends  has  distinguished  or  extinguished  himself  or  herself  ? 
In  short,  as  the  hart  for  the  waterside,  I  pant  for  a  little  news, 
but  chiefly  of  your  fair  and  agreeable  self.  .  .  .  How 
is  the  most  delightful  of  men  and  best  of  friends,  the  Admirable 
Crichton  ?  .  .  .  How  and  where  is  Bulwer  ?  How  are 
the  Whigs  and  how  do  they  feel  ?  All  here  who  know  you 
send  kind  greetings,  and  all  who  have  not  that  delight,  kind 
wishes.  Peace  be  within  your  walls  and  plenteousness  within 
your  palace.  Vale. 

Yours  affectionately, 

Dis.1 


In  December  of  this  year  there  was  published  as  a 
volume  of  200  pages  a  tract  entitled  a  'Vindication  of 
the  English  Constitution  in  a  Letter  to  a  Noble  and 
Learned  Lord,  by  Disraeli  the  Younger,'  the  noble  and 
learned  Lord  being,  of  course,  Lyndhurst.  This  tract 
is  the  most  important  of  Disraeli's  early  political  writings, 
and  the  fullest  exposition  of  his  political  creed  that 
preceded  Coningsby  ;  while  even  Coningsby,  as  we  shall 
see,  added  little  that  is  essential  to  the  statement.  There 
is  little  in  the  Vindication  itself,  perhaps,  that  may  not 
be  found  in  germ  in  the  speeches,  letters,  and  articles 
of  the  few  preceding  years,  but  all  is  now  brought  together, 
and  this  is  one  of  the  cases  where  the  whole  is  something 
more  than  the  mere  aggregate  of  the  parts.  The  Vindica- 
tion gave  Disraeli  what  his  fugitive  efforts  could  never 
have  given  him,  a  recognised  position  as  a  political 
writer  and  thinker,  and  it  not  only  helped  to  fix  and 
clarify  his  own  ideas,  but,  appearing  at  a  moment  when 
party  boundaries  were  shifting  and  principles  in  a  state 
of  flux,  it  from  the  first  exerted  no  inconsiderable  influence 
over  the  development  of  political  thought. 

1  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison's  collection.  In  the  reprint  the  year  is  wrongly 
given  as  1837. 


1835]  THE   VINDICATION  307 

From  Isaac  D'Israeli. 

Dec.  23,  1836. 

Your  vulgar  birthday  was,  it  seems,  last  Monday,  but 
your  nobler  political  birth  has  occurred  this  week,  and  truly, 
like  the  fable  of  old,  you  have  issued  into  existence  armed 
in  the  full  panoply  of  the  highest  wisdom.  You  have  now 
a  positive  name  and  a  being  in  the  great  political  world, 
which  you  had  not  ten  days  ago.  It  is  for  you  to  preserve 
the  wide  reputation  which  I  am  positive  is  now  secured. 
I  never  doubted  your  powers  —  they  were  not  latent  to  me. 
With  more  management  on  your  side  they  would  have  been 
acknowledged  long  ere  now  —  universally.  You  never  wanted 
for  genius,  but  it  was  apt  in  its  fullness  to  run  over.  You 
have  now  acquired,  what  many  a  great  genius  never  could, 
a  perfect  style,  and  that's  a  pickle  which  will  preserve  even 
matter  less  valuable  than  what  you,  I  doubt  not,  will  always 
afford  the  world.  You  have  rejected  the  curt  and  flashy 
diction  which  betrayed  perpetual  effort.  All  now  flows 
in  one  continuous  stream  of  thought  and  expression  —  at 
once  masculine  and  graceful.  .  .  .  All  that  now  remains 
for  you  to  do  is  to  register  'a  vow  in  Heaven'  that  you 
will  never  write  anything  inferior  to  what  you  have  now 
written,  and  never  to  write  but  on  a  subject  which  may  call 
forth  all  your  energies.  Should  you  ever  succeed  in  getting 
into  Parliament  I  well  know  that  your  moral  intrepidity 
and  your  rapid  combinations  of  ideas  will  throw  out  many 
'  a  Vindication '  in  the  brilliancy  and  irresistible  force  of 
your  effusions.  No  man  thinks  more  deeply,  while  he  delights 
even  common  eyes  by  the  beauties  of  his  surface.  .  .  . 
Take  care  of  your  health  —  that  is  the  only  weak  part  which 
I  fear  about  you. 

Disraeli  begins  the  Vindication  with  an  attack  on  his 
old  enemies  the  Utilitarians.  He  had  not  only  the 
instinctive  antipathy  of  the  born  romantic  to  their 
unimaginative  creed,  but  by  training  as  well  as  by 
temperament  he  had  all  the  intolerance  of  Burke  for 
their  practice  of  indulging  in  '  barren  assertions  of  abstract 
rights,'  of  dabbling  in  '  a  priori  systems  of  politics,'  and 
of  framing  'new  constitutions  on  the  abstract  princi- 
ples of  theoretic  science.'  There  are,  indeed,  frequent 
passages  in  the  Vindication  which  sound  like  echoes  of 


308  POLITICAL  WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

Burke,  and  show  that  Disraeli  was  deeply  penetrated 
with  the  spirit  and  sentiment  of  Burke's  later  writings. 
'  Nations  have  characters  as  well  as  individuals,  and 
national  character  is  precisely  the  quality  which  the  new 
sect  of  statesmen  in  their  schemes  and  speculations 
either  deny  or  overlook.'  'This  respect  for  precedent, 
this  clinging  to  prescription,  this  reverence  for  antiquity, 
which  are  so  often  ridiculed  by  conceited  and  superficial 
minds  .  .  .  appear  to  me  to  have  their  origin  in 
a  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature.'  Disraeli 
had  read  widely,  if  not  deeply,  in  history  ;  and,  like  Burke, 
indeed  like  Bolingbroke  in  a  still  earlier  generation, 
and,  above  all,  like  Bolingbroke's  friend  Montesquieu, 
he  carried  into  his  investigation  of  political  problems 
the  spirit  of  that  pregnant  historical  method  which, 
already  triumphant  in  Germany,  was  in  a  subsequent 
generation  to  overthrow  the  pretensions  of  the  dominant 
school  of  thinkers  in  England  and  present  their  so-called 
philosophy  in  its  true  historical  perspective  as  a  mere 
insular  anachronism  in  the  oecumenical  history  of  thought. 
The  argument  of  the  Vindication  is  largely  based  on  a 
favourite  doctrine  of  Disraeli's,  the  representation  in 
Parliament  of  separate  estates  of  the  realm  and  the 
dependence  of  the  balance  of  the  constitution  on  the 
maintenance  of  their  several  rights.  The  assailants 
against  whom  he  was  vindicating  the  constitution  were 
the  Radicals,  who,  as  has  been  seen,  had  attempted 
during  the  recess  to  stir  up  agitation  against 
the  House  of  Lords,  and  O'Connell,  who,  in  a 
pilgrimage  of  passion  through  the  north,  had  especially 
distinguished  himself  in  this  endeavour.  With  a  con- 
siderable display  of  learning  the  author  traces  the 
origin  and  development  of  our  institutions,  and  arrives 
at  the  conclusion  that  'the  House  of  Commons  is  no 
more  the  house  of  the  people  than  is  the  House  of  Lords.' 
To  the  Radical  conception  of  the  people  he  opposes  his 
conception  of  the  nation  as  a  living  and  organized  whole ; 
but  not  even  in  the  narrower  or  in  any  reasonable  sense 


1835]  ARGUMENT   OF   THE   TRACT  309 

of  the  term  can  the  House  of  Commons  be  regarded  as 
the  house  of  the  people  or  its  members  as  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  people.  '  The  Commons  form  still 
only  an  estate  of  the  realm,  a  privileged  and  limited  order 
of  the  nation,  in  numbers  a  fraction  of  the  mass,'  the 
constituency  even  since  its  enlargement  by  the  Reform 
Act  comprising  no  more  than  three  or  four  hundred 
thousand  persons.  The  House  of  Lords,  on  the  other 
hand,  though  not  elective,  is  truly  representative,  '  the 
most  eminent  existing  example  of  representation  with- 
out election.' 

The  House  of  Lords  represents  the  Church  in  the  Lord 
Bishops,  the  law  in  the  Lord  Chancellor,  and  often  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  the  counties  in  the  Lord  Lieutenants,  the 
boroughs  in  their  noble  recorders.  This  estate,  from  the 
character  of  the  property  of  its  members,  is  also  essentially 
the  representative  chamber  of  the  land ;  and,  as  the  hereditary 
leaders  of  the  nation,  especially  of  the  cultivators  of  the  land, 
the  genuine  and  permanent  population  of  England,  its 
peasantry.1 

'  In  a  hasty  and  factious  effort  to  get  rid  of  representa- 
tion without  election,  it  will  be  as  well  if  eventually  we 
do  not  discover  that  we  have  only  obtained  election 
without  representation.'  But  if  the  Lords  are  repre- 
sentative, what  of  their  responsibility  ?  They  are 
in  fact  in  no  greater  degree  irresponsible  than  the  Com- 
mons. 


Is  a  privileged  order  of  three  hundred  thousand  individuals, 
represented  by  their  deputies,  likely  to  be  more  responsible 
than  a  privileged  order  of  three  hundred  individuals  appear- 
ing by  themselves  ?  On  the  contrary,  every  one  sees  and 
feels  in  an  instant  that,  as  far  as  the  nation  is  concerned,  the 
more  limited  order,  who  appear  for  themselves,  and  are  more 
in  the  eye  of  the  world,  are  in  fact  in  a  moral  point  of  view 
much  more  responsible  to  the  general  body  of  the  people 
than  the  more  numerous  and  more  obscure  class,  who  shuffle 
off  that  moral  responsibility  on  their  representatives.2 

1  p.  129.  2  p>  145. 


310  POLITICAL  WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

'  If  I  were  called  upon,'  he  declares  in  words  which 
sound  like  an  echo  of  an  often-quoted  dictum  of  Alex- 
ander Hamilton's,  'to  construct  a  constitution  a  priori 
for  this  country,  of  which  a  senate,  or  superior  chamber, 
was  to  be  a  constituent  part,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive 
where  I  could  obtain  more  suitable  materials  for  its  con- 
struction than  in  the  body  of  our  hereditary  peerage.'  The 
tree,  his  argument  runs,  shall  be  known  by  its  fruit.  The 
hereditary  peerage  has  formed  an  active  and  powerful 
branch  of  our  legislature  for  five  centuries,  and  no  states- 
man can  doubt  that  its  peculiar  character  has  mainly  con- 
tributed to  the  stability  of  our  institutions.  Throughout 
that  period  it  has  given  us  a  senate  not  inferior  in  capacity 
to  the  elective  chamber,  and  now,  as  he  contends,  the 
hereditary  assembly  manifestly  excels  the  elective,  not  only 
'  in  the  higher  accomplishments  of  statesmen,  in  elevation 
of  thought  and  feeling,  in  learning  and  in  eloquence,' 
but  also  in  'those  very  qualities,  for  the  possession  of 
which  at  first  sight  we  should  be  most  disposed  to  give 
a  House  of  Commons  credit,  that  mastery  of  detail  and 
management  of  complicated  commonplaces  which  we 
style  in  this  country  "  business-like  habits."  ' 

You  cannot,  he  is  careful  to  observe,  obtain  a  substitute 
for  the  House  of  Lords  by  merely  collecting  all  the  clever 
men  of  the  country  and  giving  them  the  august  title  of  a 
senate.  A  nation  will  not  allow  three  hundred  men, 
however  ingenious,  to  make  laws  for  them,  just  because 
the  sovereign  power  of  the  state  chooses  to  appoint  that 
such  a  number  of  its  subjects  shall  possess  this  privilege. 
'  The  King  of  England  may  make  peers,  but  he  cannot 
make  a  House  of  Lords.' 

The  order  of  men,  of  whom  such  an  assembly  is  formed, 
is  the  creation  of  ages.  In  the  first  place,  they  must  really 
be  an  estate  of  the  realm,  a  class  of  individuals  who  from 
their  property  and  personal  influence  alone  form  an  important 
section  of  the  whole  nation.  .  .  .  Their  names,  office, 
and  character,  and  the  ennobling  achievements  of  their 
order,  must  be  blended  with  our  history  and  bound  up  with 
our  hereditary  sentiment.  They  must  be  felt  and  recognised 


1835]  THE   HOUSE   OF   LORDS  311 

as  the  not  unworthy  descendants  or  successors  of  a  class  that 
has  always  taken  the  lead  in  civilisation  and  formed  the 
advance  guard  in  the  march  of  national  progress.1 


Be  it  observed,  moreover,  that  at  the  root  of  the  per- 
manence and  popularity  of  our  hereditary  peerage  is 
its  essentially  democratic  character.  The  basis  of  our 
social  fabric  is  the  principle  of  civil  equality.  It  is 
this  principle  which  has  'prevented  the  nobility  of 
England  from  degenerating  into  a  favoured  and  odious 
sect.'  It  is  this  principle  which  has  placed  the  Peers 
at  the  head  of  the  people  and  filled  the  House  of  Commons 
with  members  connected  with  the  Peers  by  the  most 
intimate  ties  of  birth  and  blood. 


The  English  nation,  to  obtain  the  convenience  of  monarchy, 
have  established  a  popular  throne,  and  to  enjoy  the  security 
of  aristocracy,  have  invested  certain  orders  of  their  fellow 
subjects  with  legislative  functions :  but  these  estates,  however 
highly  privileged,  are  invested  with  no  quality  of  exclusion ; 
and  the  Peers  and  the  Commons  of  England  are  the  trustees 
of  the  nation,  not  its  masters.  The  country  where  the  leg- 
islative and  even  the  executive  office  may  be  constitution- 
ally obtained  by  every  subject  of  the  land,  is  a  democracy, 
and  a  democracy  of  the  noblest  character.  .  .  .  Neither 
ancient  ages,  nor  the  more  recent  experience  of  our  newer 
time,  can  supply  us  with  a  parallel  instance  of  a  free 
government,  founded  on  the  broadest  basis  of  popular  rights, 
yet  combining  with  democratic  liberty,  aristocratic  security, 
and  monarchical  convenience.2 


Incidentally  Disraeli  sets  forth  his  theory  of  the 
origin  and  genius  of  our  English  parties  —  a  curious 
blend  of  insight  and  paradox,  of  which  perhaps  the 
paradox  will  seem  less  startling  when  our  history  has 
been  truly  interpreted  and  freed  from  the  bias  it  has 
received  from  the  great  Whig  historians.  The  Whigs, 
according  to  Disraeli,  have  always  been  an  anti-national 
party,  always  striving  to  upset  the  balance  of  the 

1  pp.  169, 161  2  p.  207. 


312  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

constitution,  always  making  war  on  the  national  in- 
stitutions in  the  interest  of  their  own  aggrandisement. 
The  party  had  its  origin  in  the  latter  part  of  the  17th 
century  in  a  combination  between  the  Peers  and  the 
Puritans,  the  former  animated  by  hostility  to  the 
monarchy,  the  latter  by  hatred  of  the  Establishment. 
A  republican  sentiment  united  the  two  ;  but  the 
republican  model  of  the  House  of  Russell  was  Venice  ; 
of  their  plebeian  allies,  Geneva.  '  Their  cry  was  civil 
and  religious  Freedom  .  .  .  that  is,  a  doge  and  no 
bishops :  advocating  the  liberty  of  the  subject,  the 
Peers  would  have  established  an  oligarchy  ;  upholding 
toleration,  the  Puritans  aimed  at  supremacy.'  The 
Tory  party,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  national  party,  the 
really  democratic  party  in  England.  'It  supports  the 
institutions  of  the  country,  because  they  have  been 
established  for  the  common  good,  and  because  they  secure 
the  equality  of  civil  rights,  without  which,  whatever 
may  be  its  name,  no  government  can  be  free.'  When 
the  Peers  and  the  Puritans  raised  their  cry  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  as  a  pretext  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Monarchy  and  the  Church  — 

The  mass  of  the  nation  still  smarting  under  the  seques- 
trations and  imprisonments  of  parliamentary  committees, 
and  loathing  the  recollection  of  the  fanaticism  and  the 
hypocrisy  of  the  Roundhead  apostles  of  the  tub,  clung  to 
the  national  institutions.  The  clergy,  jealous  of  the  Non- 
conformists, and  fearful  of  another  deprivation,  exaggerated 
the  power  and  character  of  the  Crown,  in  which  they 
recognized  their  only  safeguard.  Hence  divine  right  and 
passive  obedience  resounded  from  our  Protestant  pulpits, 
echoed  with  enthusiasm  by  a  free  and  spirited  people  who 
acknowledged  in  these  phrases  only  a  determination  to 
maintain  the  mild  authority  of  their  King  and  of  their 
Church. » 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Tory  party  in  this  country. 
The  position  long  remained  preposterous  and  paradoxical. 
*  An  oligarchy  sought  to  establish  itself  by  the  plan  of 

1  p.  177. 


1835]  LORD  BOLINGBROKE  313 

public    freedom ;    a   nation   struggled   to   maintain     its 
rights  on  the  principles  of  arbitrary  power.' 

There  are  periods  when  the  titles  and  watchwords  of 
political  parties  become  obsolete ;  and  when,  by  adhering  to 
an  ancient  and  accustomed  cry,  a  party  often  appears  to 
profess  opinions  less  popular  than  it  really  practises,  and 
yields  a  proportionate  advantage  to  its  more  dexterous 
competitor.  In  times  of  great  political  change,  and  rapid 
political  transition,  it  will  generally  be  observed  that  political 
parties  find  it  convenient  to  re-baptize  themselves.  Thus, 
in  the  present  day,  Whigs  have  become  Reformers,  and 
Tories  Conservatives.  In  the  early  part  of  the  last  century, 
the  Tory  party  Acquired  a  similar  reorganization  to  that 
which  it  has  lately  undergone  ;  and  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of 
human  affairs  that  the  individual  that  is  required  shall  not 
long  be  wanting,  so  in  the  season  of  which  I  am  treating, 
arose  a  man  remarkable  in  an  illustrious  age,  who,  with  the 
splendour  of  an  organizing  genius,  settled  the  confused  and 
discordant  materials  of  English  faction,  and  reduced  them 
into  a  clear  and  systematic  order.  This  was  Lord  Boling- 
broke. 

Gifted  with  that  fiery  imagination,  the  teeming  fertility 
of  whose  inventive  resources  is  as  necessary  to  a  great 
statesman  or  a  great  general,  as  to  a  great  poet,  the  ablest 
writer  and  the  most  accomplished  orator  of  his  age,  that  rare 
union  that  in  a  country  of  free  parliaments  and  a  free  press, 
insures  to  its  possessor  the  privilege  of  exercising  a  constant 
influence  over  the  mind  of  his  country,  that  rare  union  that 
has  rendered  Burke  so  memorable;  blending  with  that 
intuitive  knowledge  of  his  race  which  creative  minds  alone 
enjoy,  all  the  wisdom  which  can  be  derived  from  literature, 
and  a  comprehensive  experience  of  human  affairs ;  — 
no  one  was  better  qualified  to  be  the  minister  of  a  free  and 
powerful  nation  than  Henry  St.  John  ;  and  destiny  at  first 
appeared  to  combine  with  nature  in  the  elevation  of  his 
fortunes.  Opposed  to  the  Whigs  from  principle,  for  an 
oligarchy  is  hostile  to  genius,  and  recoiling  from  the  Tory 
tenets,  which  his  unprejudiced  and  vigorous  mind  taught 
him  at  the  same  time  to  dread  and  to  contemn,  Lord 
Bolingbroke,  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  incurred  the  com- 
monplace imputation  of  insincerity  and  inconsistency,  be- 
cause in  an  age  of  unsettled  parties  with  professions 
contradictory  of  their  conduct,  he  maintained  that  vigi- 
lant and  meditative  independence  which  is  the  privilege 
of  an  original  and  determined  spirit.  It  is  probable 


314  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

that  in  the  earlier  years  of  his  career  he  meditated  over 
the  formation  of  a  new  party,  that  dream  of  youthful 
ambition  in  a  perplexed  and  discordant  age,  but  destined 
in  English  politics  to  be  never  more  substantial  than  a 
vision.  More  experienced  in  political  life,  he  became 
aware  that  he  had  only  to  choose  between  the  Whigs 
and  the  Tories,  and  his  sagacious  intellect,  not  satisfied 
with  the  superficial  character  of  these  celebrated  divisions, 
penetrated  their  interior  and  essential  qualities,  and  dis- 
covered, in  spite  of  all  the  affectation  of  popular  sympathy 
on  one  side  and  of  admiration  of  arbitrary  power  on  the 
other,  that  this  choice  was  in  fact  a  choice  between  oli- 
garchy and  democracy.  From  the  moment  that  Lord  Boling- 
broke,  in  becoming  a  Tory,  embraced  the  national  cause,  he 
devoted  himself  absolutely  to  his  party :  all  the  energies 
of  his  Protean  mind  were  lavished  in  their  service ;  and 
although  the  ignoble  prudence  of  the  Whig  Minister  re- 
strained him  from  advocating  the  cause  of  the  nation  in  the 
Senate,  it  was  his  inspiring  pen  that  made  WTalpole  tremble 
in  the  recesses  of  the  Treasury,  and  in  a  series  of  writings, 
unequalled  in  our  literature  for  their  spirited  patriotism, 
their  just  and  profound  views,  and  the  golden  eloquence  in 
which  they  are  expressed,  eradicated  from  Toryism  all  those 
absurd  and  odious  doctrines  which  Toryism  had  adventi- 
tiously adopted,  clearly  developed  its  essential  and  permanent 
character,  discarded  jure  divino,  demolished  passive  obedience, 
threw  to  the  winds  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance,  placed 
the  abolition  of  James  and  the  accession  of  George  on  their 
right  basis,  and  in  the  complete  re-organisation  of  the  pub- 
lic mind  laid  the  foundation  for  the  future  accession  of 
the  Tory  party  to  power,  and  to  that  popular  and  trium- 
phant career  which  must  ever  await  the  policy  of  an  ad- 
ministration inspired  by  the  spirit  of  our  free  and  ancient 
institutions.1 


Disraeli  had  steeped  himself  in  the  politics  of  the  age 
of  Anne  and  the  early  Georges,  had  studied  Bolingbroke 
both  in  his  career  and  in  his  writings,  and  drawn  freely 
from  the  fund  of  political  ideas  which  he  found  in  him. 
The  English  Alcibiades  has  received  something  less  than 
justice  from  the  Whig  writers  who  have  given  us  our 
history,  but  whether  he  wholly  deserved  Disraeli's  glow- 
ing eulogy  is  not  now  the  question.  It  is  not  as  an 

ipp.  185-188. 


1835]  DISRAELI'S   OWN   TASK  315 

historical  judgment  on  the  character  and  achievements 
of  Henry  St.  John  that  the  passage  really  interests  us, 
but  as  a  statement  of  the  ideal  and  an  anticipation  of  the 
career  of  Benjamin  Disraeli.  The  writer  proceeds  at 
once  to  show  the  need  for  another  Bolingbroke  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  hour.  The  Tories  have  just  carried 
England  through  a  perilous  age  of  war  and  revolution, 
and  are  burdened  in  consequence  with  an  accretion  of 
those  accidental  qualities  which  are  inseparable  from  all 
political  parties  that  have  long  been  in  power. 

If  the  Whigs  at  this  moment  be  pursuing  the  same  desperate 
and  determined  policy  that  they  prosecuted  so  vigorously 
a  century  back,  it  will  be  well  for  their  rivals  to  adopt  the 
same  cautious  yet  energetic  system  of  conduct  which,  de- 
veloped at  the  same  period  by  the  genius  of  a  Bolingbroke, 
led  in  due  season  to  the  administration  of  a  Pitt.  In  the 
conduct  of  the  Tory  party  at  this  moment,  it  appears  to  me 
that  there  are  three  points  to  the  furtherance  of  which  we 
should  principally  apply  ourselves  :  1st.  That  the  real  char- 
acter and  nature  of  Toryism  should  be  generally  and  clearly 
comprehended:  2ndly.  That  Toryism  should  be  divested  of 
all  those  qualities  which  are  adventitious  and  not  essential, 
and  which,  having  been  produced  by  that  course  of  cir- 
cumstances which  are  constantly  changing,  become  in  time 
obsolete,  inconvenient,  and  by  the  dexterous  misrepresenta- 
tion of  our  opponents  even  odious :  3rdly.  That  the  efficient 
organisation  of  the  party  should  be  secured  and  maintained.1 

There  surely  is  a  statement  of  the  task  Disraeli  pro- 
posed to  himself.  '  I  do  not  think,  he  adds,  '  there  ever 
was  a  period  in  our  history  when  the  English  nation  was 
so  intensely  Tory  in  feeling  as  at  the  present  moment; 
but  the  Reform  Act  has  placed  the  power  of  the  country 
in  the  hands  of  a  small  body  of  persons  hostile  to  the 
nation,  and  therefore  there  is  no  due  proportion  between 
the  social  and  the  political  power  of  the  national  party.' 
To  this  partial  and  sectarian  character  of  the  con- 
stituency of  1832  he  is  never  tired  of  recurring.  'I 
am  not  one  of  those,'  he  tells  us  elsewhere  in  a  passage 

1  p.  192. 


316  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

that  ought  to  be  remembered,  '  who  believe  that  the 
safety  of  the  constitution  is  consulted  by  encouraging  an 
exclusive  principle  in  the  formation  of  the  constituency 
of  our  third  estate.  It  is  not  the  supposed  democratic 
character  which  it  has  assumed  under  the  new  arrange- 
ment—  I  wish  I  could  call  it  settlement  —  that  fills  me 
with  any  apprehensions.  On  the  contrary,  I  wish  it  were 
even  more  catholic,  though  certainly  not  more  Papist.1 
It  is  its  sectarian  quality  in  which  I  discover  just  cause 
of  alarm.'2  In  genuine  Toryism  there  is  no  shrinking 
from  democracy. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  so  difficult  is  it  to  destroy 
the  original  character  and  eradicate  the  first  principles  of 
human  affairs,  that  those  very  members  of  the  Tory  party 
who  are  loudest  in  upbraiding  the  Whig  Reform  Act  as  a 
democratic  measure  were  simultaneously,  and  have  ever 
since  been,  urging  and  prosecuting  measures  infinitely  more 
democratic  than  that  cunning  oligarchical  device.  .  .  . 
No  sooner  was  the  passing  of  the  Whig  Reform  Act  inevitable, 
than  the  Tories  introduced  a  clause  into  it  which  added  many 
thousand  members  to  the  estate  of  the  Commons.  No 
sooner  was  the  Whig  Reform  Act  passed,  and  circumstances 
had  proved  that,  with  all  their  machinations,  the  oligarchy 
was  not  yet  secure,  than  the  Whigs,  under  the  pretence  of 
reforming  the  corporations,  attempted  to  compensate  them- 
selves for  the  democratic  increase  of  the  third  estate,  through 
the  Chandos  clause,  by  the  political  destruction  of  all  the 
freemen  of  England ;  but  the  Tories  again  stepped  in  to  the 
rescue  of  the  nation  from  the  oligarchy,  and  now  preserved 
the  rights  of  eighty  thousand  members  of  the  third  estate. 
And  not  content  with  adding  many  thousands  to  its  numbers, 
and  preserving  eighty  thousand,  the  Tories,  ever  since  the 
passing  of  the  oligarchical  Reform  Act  of  the  Whigs,  have 


1  Disraeli's  language   in  this  tract  is  coloured  in  many  places  by 
the   Protestant   feeling  which    the    Whig   attack   on   the    revenues   of 
the  Irish  Church  had  aroused  into  activity  ;   and  his   reconstruction  of 
history  had  not  yet  been  carried  to  the  stage  which  we  shall  find  it  reaches 
in  Sybil.     James  II.  is  still  '  the  Popish  tyrant ' ;  Lord  Somers  is  held  up 
to  us  as  the  model  of  a  wise  statesman ;  and  the  Revolution  of  16»8  is 
regarded  as  salutary  and  inevitable. 

2  p.  100. 


1836]  PEEL'S   APPRECIATION  317 

organised  societies  throughout  the  country  for  the  great 
democratic  purpose  of  increasing  to  the  utmost  possible 
extent  the  numbers  of  the  third  estate  of  the  realm.  The 
clause  of  Lord  Chandos,  your  Lordship's  triumphant  defence 
of  the  freemen  of  England,  and  the  last  registration,  are 
three  great  democratic  movements,  and  quite  in  keeping  with 
the  original  and  genuine  character  of  Toryism.1 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Jan.,  1836. 

The  letter  that  was  sent  on  to  me  was  from  Sir  Kobert 
Peel.  I  sent  him  a  copy,  late  and  grudgingly,  with  a  cold 
dry  note,  convinced  that  he  would  never  notice  or  even  con- 
fess to  having  heard  of  it,  being,  as  you  well  know,  by  reputa- 
tion the  most  jealous,  frigid,  and  haughty  of  men.  This  is 
what  he  says :  —  'I  beg  to  return  you  my  best  thanks  for 
that  copy  of  your  recent  work  respecting  the  House  of  Lords 
for  which  I  am  indebted  to  your  kind  attention  and  considera- 
tion. It  is  not  the  only  one  in  my  possession,  for,  attracted 
as  well  by  your  name  as  by  some  extracts  from  the  work  in 
the  public  papers,  which  struck  me  as  very  forcibly  written, 
I  had  taken  the  first  opportunity  of  procuring  a  copy,  and 
was  gratified  and  surprised  to  find  that  a  familar  and  appar- 
ently exhausted  topic  could  be  treated  with  so  much  of  original 
force  of  argument  and  novelty  of  illustration. 

'  I  thank  you,  both  for  the  work  itself  and  the  satisfaction 
which  the  reading  of  it  has  afforded  me. 
'  I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

'  Your  faithful  and  obedient  servant, 

'  EGBERT  PEEL.' 

Lyndhurst  thinks  this  is  much,  considering  the  writer.8 

'  A  masterly  union  of  learning,  skill,  and  eloquence,' 
was  Lyndhurst's  own  judgment. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Jan.  9. 

The  sale  of  the  Vindication  continues,  and,  though  not 
quite  so  brisk,  is  in  daily  demand.  I  received  to-day  a  letter 
from  Eliot,  which,  from  its  length  and  the  extreme  warmth 

1  pp.  201-3.  a  Letters,  p.  108. 


318  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

of  its  feeling,  would  quite  surprise  you.  His  copy  did  not 
reach  him  till  the  6th.  He  says,  among  other  things,  '  In 
reading  your  sketch  of  Bolingbroke  I  could  not  help  thinking 
that  if  opportunities  are  not  withheld  you  may  become  what 
he  might  have  been.'  He  wants  to  know,  by  the  bye,  why  I 
call  the  Orleans  branch  the  House  of  Valois.  I  am  sure  I 
don't  know.  Pray  find  out  for  me,  and  write  your  answer,  if 
you  catch  one,  as  soon  as  possible. 

On  Tuesday  I  dined  at  Lyndhurst's,  and  met  Lords  Roden, 
Lowther,  and  Rosslyn,  Sir  E.  Sugden,1  Sir  H.  Hardinge, 
Courtenay,  Alderson,  &c.,  and  Lockhart,  whom  L.  asked,  that 
he  might  review  the  Vindication.  Chance!  he  never  spoke  a 
word.  He  is  known  in  society  by  the  name  of  '  The  Viper,'  but 
if  he  tries  to  sting  me,  he  will  find  my  heel  of  iron.2 


The  beginning  of  the  year  had  found  him  engaged  in 
an  angry  quarrel  which  afforded  him  abundant  opportu- 
nity for  displaying  his  'heel  of  iron.'  'The  letters  to 
The  Times  have  made  a  great  sensation,'  he  writes3  to  his 
sister.  '  I  am  the  first  individual  who  has  silenced  the 
Press  with  its  own  weapons.'  The  Globe,  then  a  Whig 
organ,  in  an  abusive  notice  of  the  Vindication,  had 
revived  the  old  business  of  Hume,  O'Connell,  and  the 
first  Wycombe  election ;  and  a  lengthy  controversy 
ensued  conducted  on  Disraeli's  side  in  the  columns  of 
The  Times.  His  letters  add  nothing  of  moment  to  our 
knowledge,  but  one  passage  is,  perhaps,  worth  preserving, 
both  as  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  the  '  heel 
of  iron'  was  applied  and  as  an  illustration  of  the  contro- 
versial methods  of  the  day. 

The  editor  of  the  Globe  has  been  pleased  to  say  that  he  is 
disinclined  to  continue  this  controversy  because  it  gratifies 
my  'passion  for  notoriety.'  The  editor  of  the  Globe  must 
have  a  more  contracted  mind  and  paltrier  spirit  than  even  I 
imagined  if  he  can  suppose  for  a  moment  that  an  ignoble 
controversy  with  an  obscure  animal  like  himself  can  gratify 
the  passion  for  notoriety  of  one  whose  works  at  least  have 
been  translated  into  the  languages  of  polished  Europe,  and 
circulate  by  thousands  in  the  New  World.  It  is  not  then 
my  passion  for  notoriety  that  has  induced  me  to  tweak  the 

1  Afterwards  Lord  St.  Leonards  and  Lord  Chancellor. 

2  Letters,  p.  100.  8  On  Jan.  4. 


1836]  DISRAELI   AND   THE   TIMES  319 

editor  of  the  Globe  by  the  nose,  and  to  inflict  sundry  kicks 
upon  the  baser  part  of  his  base  body ;  to  make  him  eat  dirt, 
and  his  own  words,  fouler  than  any  filth ;  but  because  I 
wished  to  show  to  the  world  what  a  miserable  poltroon,  what 
a  craven  dullard,  what  a  literary  scarecrow,  what  a  mere  thing, 
stuffed  with  straw  and  rubbish,  is  the  soi-disant  director  of 
public  opinion  and  official  organ  of  Whig  politics.1 

'  'Tis  a  great  thing  to  have  such,  an  organ  for  response 
as  The  Times,'  wrote  Disraeli  to  his  sister.  Under  the 
guidance  of  John  Walter,  second  of  the  name,  The 
Times  had  already  taken  a  place  far  ahead  of  all  its 
rivals  ;  and,  though  it  had  supported  the  Reform  move- 
ment and  been  friendly  to  the  Grey  Ministry,  it  was  now 
in  open  opposition  to  Melbourne  and  bitterly  hostile 
to  the  alliance  between  the  Whigs  and  O'Connell.  In 
the  previous  summer,  it  will  be  remembered,  Disraeli 
had  used  the  Morning  Post  as  his  journalistic  medium, 
but  he  now  transferred  his  flag  to  The  Times  and  formed 
a  close  alliance  with  Barnes,  the  Editor.  The  alliance 
soon  bore  fruit.  In  The  Times  of  January  19  there 
appeared  a  scathing  philippic  against  the  Government 
and  its  members  in  the  form  of  a  letter  addressed  to 
Lord  Melbourne,  and  written  in  the  style  of  Junius 
over  the  signature  of  *  Runnymede.'  This  letter  was 
the  first  of  a  series  of  nineteen2  in  all  which  appeared 
in  the  course  of  the  four  months  that  followed.  Three 
are  addressed  to  Melbourne,  two  to  Peel  and  Stanley, 
and  most  of  the  others  to  the  leading  members  of  the 
Government. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

[Jan.  1836.] 

The  Letters  of  Runnymede  are  the  only  things  talked  of  in 
London,  especially  the  latter  ones.  The  author  is  unknown, 
and  will  probably  so  remain.  One  or  two  papers  have  foolishly 

1  The  Times,  Jan.  9,  1836. 

2  A  few  more  letters  appeared  over  the  same  signature  in  the  following 
year. 


320  POLITICAL  WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

ascribed  them  to  me.  There  is  certainly  some  imitation  of  my 
style,  and  the  writer  is  familiar  with  my  works. 

Feb.  5. 

The  Letters  of  Runnymede  are  still  making  a  great  sensation. 
They  are  considered  as  rising  regularly  in  power,  and  the  two 
last,  the  characters  of  Lord  J[ohn]  K[ussell]  and  0'C[onnellJ 
are  generally  esteemed  the  most  powerful.  Fraser,  which  is 
making  some  noise,  is  the  highest  eulogy  I  ever  received, 
saying:  'Swift  observes,  the  appearance  of  a  great  genius 
in  the  world  may  always  be  known  by  the  virulence  of  the 
dunces,  and  that  this  has  been  singularly  illustrated  in  ray 
case,'  &c.  Peel  told  Lyndhurst  the  last  letter  was  the  most 
powerful  of  all ;  so  it  is  generally  esteemed.1 

That  the  letters  were  immensely  effective  at  the  time 
of  their  appearance  there  is  no  room  for  doubt,  but  their 
style  is  hardly  such  as  to  win  appreciation  now  or  to  act 
as  a  salt  to  preserve  them  for  posterity.  Urbanity  was 
certainly  not  in  those  days  a  characteristic  of  Disraeli's 
controversial  methods  any  more  than  it  was  a  character- 
istic of  the  journalism  of  the  time ;  and  whatever  wit  or 
wisdom  the  letters  may  contain,  their  tone  is  too  personal, 
their  invective  too  unmeasured,  and  even  their  praise,  when 
they  praise,  too  little  under  restraint  for  the  taste  of  the 
present  day.  The  abuse  of  O'Connell,  for  instance,  in  the 
letter  which  Peel  thought  so  powerful  exceeds  all  bounds 
in  its  savagery :  — '  He  is  a  systematic  liar  and  a  beggarly 

cheat,    a    swindler,    and    a    poltroon His 

public  and  his  private  life  are  equally  profligate ;  he  has 
committed  every  crime  that  does  not  require  courage.'2 
In  the  case  of  O'Connell  there  was  of  course  personal 
animus  to  add  venom  to  the  shaft,  but  others  who  were 
guiltless  of  provocation  are  made  to  suffer  hardly  less. 
'You  have  a  most  surprising  disdain  for  the  law  of  libel,' 
wrote  Barnes  on  some  occasion,  and  the  law  of  libel  was 
evidently  less  of  a  terror  to  newspapers  in  those  days 
than  now.  Disraeli  never  till  the  end  of  his  life  acknow- 
ledged the  authorship  of  the  letters,  and  probably  he  was 

1  Letters,  pp.  100  and  102. 

2  Letter  VIII.    To  the  People. 


1836]  LETTERS   OF   RUNNYMEDE  321 

deterred  by  a  feeling  of  remorse  for  the  rough  handling 
he  had  given  to  men  with  whom  he  was  afterwards  on 
terms  of  friendship.  Lord  John  Russell,  for  instance, 
is 'a  feeble  Catiline';  'an  individual,  who,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  good  vinegar  is  the  corruption  of  bad  wine, 
has  been  metamorphosed  from  an  incapable  author  into 
an  eminent  politician.'  In  all  his  conduct  'it  is  not 
difficult  to  detect  the  workings  of  a  mean  and  long- 
mortified  spirit  suddenly  invested  with  power,  —  the 
struggles  of  a  strong  ambition  attempting,  by  a  wanton 
exercise  of  authority,  to  revenge  the  disgrace  of  a  feeble 
intellect.'  Palmerston  is  the  '  Lord  Fanny  of  diplomacy,' 
endowed  with  a  dexterity  '  which  seems  a  happy  compound 
of  the  smartness  of  an  attorney's  clerk  and  the  intrigue 
of  a  Greek  of  the  lower  Empire.'  'The  leader  of  the 
Whig  Opposition  was  wont  to  say  that  your  Lordship 
reminded  him  of  a  favourite  footman  on  easy  terms  with 
his  mistress '  :  that  was  of  course  said  in  Palmerston's 
Tory  days,  but  those  days  had  been  ended  by  his  expul- 
sion from  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  Cabinet  '  for  playing 
a  third-rate  part  in  a  third-rate  intrigue.'  '  Our  language 
commands  no  expression  of  scorn  which  has  not  been 
exhausted  in  the  celebration  of  your  character;  there 
is  no  conceivable  idea  of  degradation  which  has  not  been 
at  some  period  or  another,  associated  with  your  career.' 
Spring  Rice,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  has  the 
reputation  of  '  a  man  of  business ' ;  '  and,  indeed,  shrewd 
without  being  sagacious,  bustling  without  method, 
loquacious  without  eloquence,  ever  prompt  though 
always  superficial,  and  ever  active  though  always  blun- 
dering, you  are  exactly  the  sort  of  fussy  busybody  who 
would  impose  upon  and  render  himself  indispensable  to 
indolent  and  ill-informed  men  of  strong  ambition  and 
weak  minds.'  Melbourne  himself  in  a  happy  phrase  is 
accused  of  'sauntering  over  the  destinies  of  a  nation, 
and  lounging  away  the  glory  of  an  Empire.' 

I  think  the  Cabinet  might  take  to  cricket  —  they  are  a  choice 
eleven.      With   their  peculiarly   patriotic  temperaments,  and 


322  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

highly  national  feelings,  they  might  venture,  I  think,  to  play 
against  '  All  England.'  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  Glenelg, 
with  their  talent  for  keeping  in,  would  assuredly  secure  a 
good  score.  Lord  John,  indeed,  with  all  his  flourishing,  will 
probably  end  in  knocking  down  his  own  wicket ;  and  as  for 
Sir  Cam,1  the  chances  certainly  are  that  he  will  be  'caught 
out,'  experiencing  the  same  fate  in  play  as  in  politics.  If 
you  could  only  engage  Lord  Durham  to  fling  sticks  at  the 
seals  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  the  agile  Mr.  Ellice  to  climb 
a  greasy  pole  for  the  Colonial  portfolio,  I  think  you  will  have 
provided  a  very  entertaining  programme  of  Easter  sports.2 

The  letter  to  Peel  is  throughout  a  piece  of  highly- 
pitched  glorification  that  reads  strangely  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  events.  '  In  your  chivalry  alone  is  our 
hope.  Clad  in  the  panoply  of  your  splendid  talents  and 
your  spotless  character  we  feel  assured  that  you  will ' 
conquer. 

What  a  contrast  does  your  administration  as  Prime  Minister 
afford  to  that  of  one  of  your  recent  predecessors !  No  selfish 
views,  no  family  aggrandisement,  no  family  jobs,  no  nepotism. 
.  .  .  Contrast  the  serene  retirement  of  Drayton,  and  the 
repentant  solitude  of  Howick;  contrast  the  statesman, 
cheered  after  his  factious  defeat  by  the  sympathy  of  a  nation, 
with  the  coroneted  Necker,  the  worn-out  Machiavel,  wringing 
his  helpless  hands  over  his  hearth  in  remorseful  despair,  and 
looking  up  with  a  sigh  at  his  scowling  ancestors.  .  .  . 

You  have  an  addition  to  the  scutcheon  of  your  fame  in 
the  emblazoned  memory  of  your  brief  but  masterly  premier- 
ship. They  cannot  taunt  you  now  with  your  vague  promises 
of  amelioration :  you  can  appeal  to  the  deeds  of  your  Cabinet, 
and  the  plans  which  the  applause  of  a  nation  sanctioned, 
and  the  execution  of  which  the  intrigues  of  a  faction  alone 
postponed.  Never,  too,  since  the  peace  of  Paris,  has  the 
great  national  party  of  this  realm  been  so  united  as  at  the 
present  moment.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say,  that  among 
its  leaders  not  the  slightest  difference  of  opinion  exists  upon 
any  portion  of  their  intended  policy.  Pitt  himself,  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  power,  never  enjoyed  more  cordial  con-, 
fidence  than  that  which  is  now  extended  to  you  by  every 
alleged  section  of  the  Conservative  ranks. 

1  Sir  John  Cam  Hobhouse,  afterwards  Lord  Brougliton. 
*  Letter  XV. 


1836]  PRAISE   OF   PEEL  AND   STANLEY  323 

A  similar  strain  of  panegyric  runs  through  the  letter  to 
Stanley. 

When  the  acerbities  of  faction  have  passed  away,  posterity 
will  do  justice  to  your  disinterestedness  and  devotion.  .  .  . 
Less  than  three  years  ago  the  Whigs,  and  loudest  among 
them  my  Lord  Melbourne,  announced  you  as  the  future 
Prime  Minister  of  England.  Young,  of  high  lineage,  of 
illustrious  station,  and  of  immaculate  character,  and  un- 
questionably their  ablest  orator,  —  among  your  own  party  you 
had  no  rival.  .  .  .  You,  my  Lord,  preferred  your  honour 
to  your  interest,  the  prosperity  of  your  native  land  to  the 
gratification  of  your  ambition.  You  sacrificed  without  a 
pang  the  proudest  station  in  your  country,  to  prove  to  your 
countrymen  that  public  principle  was  not  yet  a  jest.  You 
did  well.  The  pulse  of  our  national  character  was  beating 
low.  We  required  some  great  example  to  re-brace  the  energies 
of  our  honour.  From  the  moment  that  you  denounced 
the  disgusting  thraldom  and  the  base  expedients  of  your 
chicaning  colleagues,  a  better  feeling  pervaded  England,  and 
animated  Englishmen.  .  .  . 

The  time  is  ripe  for  union  and  fair  for  concord. 
When,  some  days  back,  in  my  letter  to  Sir  Robert 
Peel  —  a  letter,  let  me  observe  in  passing,  written  by  one 
whose  name,  in  spite  of  the  audacious  licence  of  frantic 
conjecture,  has  never  yet  been  even  intimated,  can  never  be 
discovered,  and  will  never  be  revealed  —  I  announced  the 
fact  that  the  great  Conservative  party  was  at  length  com- 
pletely united,  it  was  a  declaration  equivalent  to  England 
being  saved.  .  .  .  In  a  Peel,  a  Stanley,  a  Wellington, 
and  a  Lyndhurst,  the  people  of  England  recognise  their  fitting 
leaders.  Let  the  priestly  party  oppose  to  these  the  acrid 
feebleness  of  a  Russell,  and  the  puerile  commonplace  of  a 
Howick,  Melbourne's  experienced  energy,  and  Lansdowne's 
lucid  perception !  . 


From  Lord  Lyndhurst. 

[February,  1836.] 
MY    DEAR   DlSST, 

Lord  John  is  a  great,  very  great  success.  B[arnes]  writes 
me  word  that  it  is  the  best  of  the  series.  1  agree  entirely 
with  him  in  this. 

It  strikes  me  that  one  advantage  of  a  strict  incognito  is 
this :  that  people  are  never  jealous  of  the  success  of  an 
unknown  person :  they  praise  therefore  readily,  freely,  fully. 


324  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

This  they  will  not  do  when  an  author  is  known :  other  feel- 
ings, other  considerations  raise  themselves  up  in  the  mind  and 
operate  as  a  minus  quantity  in  the  sum  of  praise.  I  fear 
in  this  case  nobody  can  doubt  the  author!  It  should  have 
been  discovered  later. 

Ever, 

L. 


The  letters  were  republished  in  the  course  of  the  summer 
with  a  long  dedication  to  Peel,  and  bound  up  with  them 
there  was  a  short  tract  entitled  '  The  Spirit  of  Whiggism,' 
which  could  have  left  little  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  one 
who  had  read  the  Vindication  as  to  the  identity  of  '  Runny- 
mede.'  From  beginning  to  end  we  have  the  argument, 
the  history,  and  even  the  language  of  the  Vindication 
repeated,  though  here  and  there  is  a  phrase  more  finished, 
a  point  more  precisely  made,  or  a  position  more  happily 
elaborated. 

It  is  a  great  delusion  to  believe  that  revolutions  are  ever 
effected  by  a  nation.  It  is  a  faction,  and  generally  a  small 
one,  that  overthrows  a  dynasty  or  remodels  a  constitution. 
.  .  .  During  the  last  five  years  the  Whigs  have  been 
at  war  with  the  English  constitution.  First  of  all  they 
captured  the  King;  then  they  vanquished  the  House  of 
Commons ;  now  they  have  laid  siege  to  the  House  of  Lords. 
.  .  .  The  House  of  Lords  at  this  moment  represents 
everything  in  the  realm  except  the  Whig  oligarchs,  their 
tools  —  the  Dissenters,  and  their  masters  —  the  Irish  priests. 
In  the  meantime,  the  Whigs  bawl  aloud  that  there  is  a  '  colli- 
sion ! '  It  is  true  there  is  a  collision  ;  but  it  is  not  a  collision 
between  the  Lords  and  the  People,  but  between  the  Ministers 
and  the  Constitution. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  remind  the  English  nation  that  a 
revolutionary  party  is  not  necessarily  a  liberal  one,  and 
that  a  republic  is  not  indispensably  a  democracy.  .  . 
The  rights  and  liberties  of  a  nation  can  only  be  preserved 
by  institutions.  It  is  not  the  spread  of  knowledge  or  the 
march  of  intellect  that  will  be  found  sufficient  sureties  for 
the  public  welfare  in  the  crisis  of  a  country's  freedom.  .  .  . 
I  would  address  myself  to  the  English  Radicals.  ...  I 


1836]  SPIRIT   OF   WHIGGISM  325 

mean  those  thoughtful  and  enthusiastic  men  who  study  their 
unstamped  press,  and  ponder  over  a  millennium  of  operative 
amelioration.  Not  merely  that  which  is  just,  but  that  which 
is  also  practicable,  should  be  the  aim  of  a  sagacious  politician. 
Let  the  Radicals  well  consider  whether,  in  attempting  to 
achieve  their  avowed  object,  they  are  not,  in  fact,  only 
assisting  the  secret  views  of  a  party  whose  scheme  is 
infinitely  more  adverse  to  their  own  than  the  existing  system, 
whose  genius  I  believe  they  entirely  misapprehend.  The 
monarchy  of  the  Tories  is  more  democratic  than  the  republic 
of  the  Whigs.  It  appeals  with  a  keener  sympathy  to  the 
passions  of  the  millions ;  it  studies  their  interests  with  a 
more  comprehensive  solicitude. 


There  is  no  probability  of  ever  establishing  in  England  a 
more  democratic  form  of  government  than  the  present  English 
constitution.  .  .  .  The  disposition  of  property  in  England 
throws  the  government  of  the  country  into  the  hands  of  its 
natural  aristocracy.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  scheme  of 
the  suffrage,  or  any  method  of  election,  could  divert  that 
power  into  other  quarters.  It  is  the  necessary  consequence 
of  our  present  social  state.  I  believe,  the  wider  the  popular 
suffrage,  the  more  powerful  would  be  the  natural  aristocracy. 
This  seems  to  me  an  inevitable  consequence;  but  I  admit 
this  proposition  on  the  clear  understanding  that  such  an 
extension  should  be  established  upon  a  fair,  and  not  a 
factious,  basis. 


Our  revolutions  are  brought  about  by  the  passions  of 
creative  minds  taking  advantage,  for  their  own  aggrandise- 
ment, of  peculiar  circumstances  in  our  national  progress. 
They  are  never  called  for  by  the  great  body  of  the  nation. 
Churches  are  plundered,  long  rebellions  maintained,  dynasties 
changed,  Parliaments  abolished;  but  when  the  storm  is 
passed,  the  features  of  the  social  landscape  remain  unimpaired; 
there  are  no  traces  of  the  hurricane,  the  earthquake,  or  the 
volcano;  it  has  been  but  a  tumult  of  the  atmosphere,  that 
has  neither  toppled  down  our  old  spires  and  palaces,  nor 
swallowed  up  our  cities  and  seats  of  learning,  nor  blasted 
our  ancient  woods,  nor  swept  away  our  ports  and  harbours. 
The  English  nation  ever  recurs  to  its  ancient  institutions  — 
the  institutions  that  have  alike  secured  freedom  and  order; 
and  after  all  their  ebullitions,  we  find  them,  when  the  sky  is 
clear,  again  at  work,  and  toiling  on  at  their  eternal  task  of 
accumulation. 


326  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

There  is  ever  an  union  in  a  perverted  sense  between  those 
who  are  beneath  power  and  those  who  wish  to  be  above  it ; 
and  oligarchies  and  despotisms  are  usually  established  by  the 
agency  of  a  deluded  multitude.  .  .  .  This  union  of  oli- 
garchical wealth  and  mob  poverty  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
'  Spirit  of  Whiggism.' 

Meanwhile  Disraeli  had  found  a  haven  of  rest  in  the 
Carlton. 


To  Lady  Blessington. 

Wednesday  [Feb.,  1836]. 
MY  DEAREST  LADY, 

Early  in  March  there  are  to  be  fifty  members  elected  into 
the  Carlton  by  the  members  at  large.  A  strong  party  of  my 
friends,  Lord  L.,  Lord  Chandos,  Stuart  de  Rothesay,  etc., 
are  very  active  in  my  behalf,  and  I  think  among  the  leaders 
of  our  party  my  claims  would  be  recognised ;  but  doubtless 
there  is  a  sufficient  alloy  of  dunces  even  among  the  Conserv- 
atives, and  I  have  no  doubt  there  will  be  a  stout  opposition 
to  me.  Although  I  will  not  canvass  myself,  I  wish  my  friends 
to  do  so  most  earnestly.  I  know  from  personal  experience  that 
one  word  from  you  would  have  more  effect  upon  me  than 
letters  from  all  the  lords  in  Xdom.  I  wish  therefore  to  enlist 
you  on  my  side,  and  will  take  the  liberty  of  sending  you  a  list 
to-morrow. 

Votre  Dis.1 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

[March,  1836.] 

I  carried  the  Carlton ;  the  opposition  was  not  inconsiderable 
in  the  committee,  but  my  friends  were  firm  —  400  candidates, 
and  all  in  their  own  opinion  with  equal  claims. 

THE  CARLTON, 

April  18. 

The  Opera  is  very  good  this  year,  and  Carlotta  Grisi  the 
great  dancer.  There  is  a  report  in  Times  of  the  Lewes  ban- 
quet. About  my  pledging  myself  to  come  forward  is  a  men- 
dacious flourish,  but  does  not  matter.  The  Carlton  is  a  great 

1  Morrison  collection. 


1836]  ELECTED   TO   THE   CARLTON  327 

lounge,  and  I  have  found  a  kind  friend  in  Francis  Baring  — 
Lord  Ashburton's  eldest  son.1 

Disraeli  knew  how  to  employ  to  advantage  his  new 
connexion  with  The  Times.  He  had  gone  to  Lewes  with 
a  friend  who  was  candidate  for  the  borough  and  addressed 
a  meeting  in  his  interest ;  and  The  Times  gave  a  column 
of  the  speech,  introducing  the  speaker  as  '  Mr.  Disraeli, 
already  well  known  for  his  literary  talents  and  his  op- 
position to  the  O'Connell  influence  in  the  Government.' 
The  report  is  worth  reading  even  now  for  the  skill  with 
which  the  history  and  constitutional  theory  of  the  Vin- 
dication are  woven  into  a  speech  that  was  yet  supremely 
effective  as  a  piece  of  platform  oratory,  as  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  when  the  orator  sat  down  '  the  most 
deafening  applause  prevailed  for  the  space  of  several 
minutes.' 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

June  13. 

The  crisis  goes  on.  The  general  impression  is  that  the 
Ministers  are  going  to  play  1832  over  again,  and  resign  with 
the  idea  we  cannot  form  a  Government.  Nothing  can  give 
you  an  idea  of  the  excitement  prevailing  in  the  political 
circles,  but  I  am  not  inclined  to  change  my  opinion,  viz., 
that  there  will  be  no  dissolution.  Lyndhurst,  who  has  been 
dining  with  the  Duke,  confirms  what  I  have  heard ;  the  battle 
cannot  be  fought  better  than  at  present.  .  .  .  Lyndhurst's 
speech  was  really  a  masterpiece  ;  since  Canning  there  has 
been  nothing  like  it.  O'Connell  came  into  the  House,  but, 
he  will  have  it,  after  L.  had  done  speaking  about  him.  How- 
ever, he  was  there,  and  it  was  a  grand  hit,  for  everybody  be- 
lieved him  to  be  there.  The  Commons  were  cowed  last  night ; 
Lyndhurst's  dash  has  daunted  them ;  John  Russell  was  really 
feeble,  and  O'Connell  furiously  tame.  In  the  meantime,  I 
am  brought  forward  with  great  trumpeting  in  leading  arti- 
cles of  the  Chronicle.  Both  Lyndhurst  and  Sir  R.  Peel  are 
said  to  have  adopted  Mr.  Disraeli's  view  of  the  Consti- 
tution, &c.,  &c.2 

1  Letters,  pp.  103-4.  2J6iU,  p.  104. 


328  POLITICAL  WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

The  session  was  in  the  main  an  Irish  session,  and 
though  it  opened  well  for  the  Government  they  emerged 
from  it  with  little  credit.  Disraeli's  account  of  it,  from 
the  same  fragment  as  his  account  of  the  session  of  1835,1 
and  written  in  the  same  staccato  style,  is  as  follows :  — 


The  Tories  met  Parliament  in  the  most  sanguine  spirits. 
It  was  supposed  that  the  Ministers  would  not  have  a  majority. 
The  Tories  had  gained  in  isolated  elections  since  their  resigna- 
tion enough  votes  to  destroy  the  majority  that  drove  Sir 
R.  P.  from  office.  The  Raphael  Car  low  business  was  also 
considered  very  injurious  to  O'Connell.  To  our  surprise  the 
Ministers  as  strong  as  ever.  Our  party  became  dispirited. 
Peel  timid  and  always  acting  on  the  defensive.  The  Irish 
Corporations  and  Church  Bill  again  approaching.  The  last 
propitiously  postponed  by  the  Ministers  for  reasons  after- 
wards discovered. 


L.  has  a  conference  with  the  Duke  of  Cumberland.  Forms 
another  and  still  more  comprehensive  plan  for  arresting  the 
movement.  Conferences  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington :  an- 
nounces his  determination  to  withdraw  if  not  supported  by 
Sir  R.  P.  Conferences  between  the  D.  of  W.,  Sir  R.  P.,  and 
Lord  L.  Sir  R.  P.  agrees  to  accept  Lord  L.'s  plan  and  pledges 
himself  to  act  upon  it.  The  total  extinction2  of  the  Irish 
corporations  resolved  upou.  Strength  of  the  Ministers  in 
the  Commons  —  majority  of  more  than  80.  Lords  assembled 
at  Apsley  House.  Each  peer  individually  pledges  himself 
to  support  Lord  L.'s  plans  at  all  events.  Commencement  of 
the  real  session  of  the  Lords  as  late  as  June.  Extraordinary 
speeches  and  exertions  of  Lord  L.  Attempt  at  creating  a 
collision.  Total  failure  from  the  firmness  of  the  Lords. 
Great  courage  and  eminent  services  of  the  D.  of  Cumber- 
land. Great  exertions  of  the  Press  and  of  The  Times  in  fa- 
vour of  Lyndhurst.  The  country  sides  with  the  Lords.  The 
threatened  collision  laughed  at.  The  Ministerial  tactics  long 
planned  by  O'Connell  now  developed.  The  Lords  Bill  on 
Irish  Corporations  to  be  accepted  and  the  appropriation 
clause  to  be  given  [up  ?].  Consequent  jealousy  and  dis- 

1  See  above,  p.  301. 

2  The  Government  Bill  proposed  to  substitute  for  the  old  corrupt 
corporations  a  system  of    elected   councils ;   but    the    Lords    declined 
to  accept  the  constructive  portion  of  the  scheme  and  converted  the 
Bill  into  a    measure  for  the  abolition  of    municipal    corporations    in 
Ireland. 


1836]  ACCOUNT   OF   THE   SESSION  329 

content  of  the  English  Radicals.  The  Ministers  obliged  to 
give  up  the  O'Connell  tactics.  They  reject  the  Irish  Corpora- 
tions Bill  as  amended  by  the  Lords  and  pass  the  Appropria- 
tion clause.  The  Lords  follow  up  the  Lyndhurst  plan.  He 
becomes  virtual  leader  of  the  Upper  House.  All  the  Whig 
Radical  measures  thrown  out  with  the  entire  approbation  of 
the  country :  all  the  elections  in  favour  of  the  Tories.  Rage 
of  the  Irish  party.  The  country  rallies  round  Lyndhurst. 
He  delivers  his  speech  called  '  The  Summary  of  the  Session'  — 
reprinted,  and  circulates  through  the  country  in  innumerable 
editions.  The  English  Radicals  announce  their  provisional 
defection  from  the  Whigs.  The  Foreign  policy  of  the  Whigs. 
The  session  closes  with  the  complete  triumph  of  the  Tories 
at  home  and  abroad. 

About  a  month  ago  (I  write  this  rapid  sketch  17  Sept.  1836) 
at  the  Carlton  Club  Lord  de  L'lsle,  son-in-law  of  the  King, 
informed  me  that  His  Majesty  wished  L.  to  be  Premier,  but 
was  afraid  he  was  inextricably  bound  to  Sir  R.  P.  Dined 
alone  with  Lord  Strangford  on  the  13th,  who  was  fresh  from 
Walmer,  where  he  had  a  confidential  conversation  with  the 
D.  of  W'n.  His  Grace  said  he  anticipated  a  daily  break-up 
of  the  Government  but  himself  wished  it  postponed.  That  he 
himself  would  take  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  but  no  office  :  wished 
L.  to  throw  over  his  profession.  Thought  P.  must  be  Premier, 
but  thought  L.  with  the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Lords,  an 
earldom,  and  the  Home  Department  would  be  almost  the  same 
as  Premier.  Similar  ideas  are  common  —  but  a  large  party  in 
the  country  would  hail  L.'s  accession  to  the  Premiership  with 
satisfaction.  His  firmness  and  courage  have  won  all  hearts, 
and  the  result  has  proved  his  sagacity. 

On  the  day  that  Lyndhurst  died  nearly  thirty  years 
later  Disraeli  took  his  pen  and  placed  on  paper  his  impres- 
sions of  the  dead  man's  mind  and  character :  and  the 
document,  which  is  at  once  an  appreciation  guided  by  the 
knowledge  and  warmed  by  the  sympathy  of  a  long  and 
intimate  friendship,  and  a  judgment  that  is  almost  Rhada- 
manthine  in  its  penetration  and  detachment,  has  happily 
come  down  to  us. 

Oct.  13, 1863. 

Lord  Lyndhurst  died  this  morning. 

He  had  a  mind  equally  distinguished  for  its  vigour  and 
flexibility.  He  rarely  originated,  but  his  apprehension  was 


330  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

very  quick  and  he  mastered  the  suggestions  of  others  and 
made  them  clearer  and  more  strong.  He  had  a  great  grasp ; 
thoroughly  mastered  a  subject;  deep  and  acute;  and  some- 
times when  you  thought  him  slow,  was  only  exhaustive.  In 
his  statements  accurate,  complete  and  singularly  lucid  :  the 
clearest  mind  on  affairs  with  equal  power  of  conceiving  and 
communicating  his  perspicuous  views. 

His  soul  wanted  ardor,  for  he  was  deficient  in  imagination, 
though  by  no  means  void  of  sensibility.  He  adapted  himself 
to  circumstances  in  a  moment,  though  he  could  not  create, 
or  even  considerably  control  them.  His  ambition  active, 
not  soaring.  Its  natural  height  to  hold  the  Great  Seal  thrice  : 
but  when  the  King  in  1836  had  it  conveyed  to  him  that  he 
might  be  called  upon  to  take  the  first  place,  and  would  he  be 
ready,  he  exclaimed  '  Why,  I  am  a  lawyer,  not  a  statesman,' 
and  seemed  disconcerted :  but  when  he  had  talked  over  the 
matter  with  a  friend,1  he  not  only  arrived  at  the  result  that 
he  was  a  statesman,  but  let  his  Master  be  assured  that  he  was 
prepared  to  do  his  bidding,  though  it  was  one  unusually 
difficult  and  perilous.  His  cultivation  was  considerable : 
far  more  than  he  was  given  credit  for.  His  reading  had  been 
various  and  extensive,  though  he  never  sought  to  display 
it;  and  his  scientific  acquirements  notable.  He  retained 
and  digested  everything;  supported  by  a  powerful  and  well- 
ordered  memory. 

A  pleader  rather  than  an  orator,  and  never  a  debater. 
Unsuccessful  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  rose  at  once  in 
the  House  of  Lords  to  a  position  of  unapproached  supremacy ; 
the  times  were  favourable  to  him  there.  His  stately  and 
luminous  expositions,  in  a  voice  of  thrilling  music,  were 
adapted  to  a  senate  of  which  he  caught  the  tone  with  facility. 
His  taste  almost  amounted  to  austerity,  yet  he  did  not  appre- 
ciate Demosthenes,  and  was  a  strong  Ciceronian. 

He  had  a  sweet  disposition,  with  a  temper  that  nothing 
could  ruffle ;  indulgent,  placable,  free  from  prejudice  and 
utterly  devoid  of  vanity.  His  feelings  perhaps  were  not  very 
strong,  but  they  were  always  lucid.  He  was  wonderfully 
fond  of  the  society  of  women,  and  this  not  merely  from  his 
susceptibility  to  the  sex,  which  was  notorious,  but  because  he 
was  fond  of  them  in  every  relation  of  life.  He  loved  to  be 
surrounded  by  his  family,  who  were  all  females  :  a  mother  of 
90,  a  sister  nearly  his  own  age,  and  who  survived  him  in 

1  There  is  here  an  interlineal  gloss — '  i.e.,  D.  —  1873.' 


1836]  APPRECIATION   OF   LYNDHURST  331 

possession  of  all  her  faculties,  indulged  and  devoted  daughters. 
He  was  happy  in  two  marriages,  though  his  wives  in  every 
respect  were  very  different. 

His  mind  was  playful,  but  not  witty,  and  he  had  little  humor 
though  he  could  sympathise  with  it.  His  knowledge  of  man- 
kind was  great,  but  not  consummate,  for  in  their  management 
there  was  this  error,  he  was  willing  to  give  them  credit  for 
being  influenced  by  amiable,  but  not  elevated  feelings. 

His  person  was  highly  prepossessing.  Far  above  the 
middle  height,  his  figure  was  symmetrical  and  distinguished, 
and  though  powerfully  formed,  he  never  became  stout.  His 
countenance  was  that  of  a  high-bred  falcon.  Indeed,  nothing 
could  be  finer  than  the  upper  part  of  his  countenance.  His 
deep-set  eye  gleamed  with  penetrating  fire,  and  his  brow  was 
majestic.  Nothing  could  be  more  beautiful.  It  was  that 
of  the  Olympian  Jove.  The  lower  part  of  his  countenance 
betrayed  the  deficiencies  of  his  character;  a  want  of  high 
purpose,  and  some  sensual  attributes. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

June  15,  1836. 

Chandos  is  going  to  give  a  grand  fish  dinner  on  the  18th 
to  the  leaders  of  both  Houses,  and  has  asked  me.  .  .  . 
I  have  dined  with  Baring  Wall  in  a  house  the  most  beautiful 
I  ever  entered,  built  by  Kent;  domed  staircases,  landing- 
places  supported  by  Corinthian  columns,  and  a  grand  salon, 
which,  for  its  height,  carving,  gilding,  and  richly-painted 
ceiling,  exceeded  anything  I  ever  saw  in  a  private  house. 
Our  dinner  was  worthy  of  the  l  veritable  Amphitryon '  of 
London,  and  was  served  off  a  set  of  Dresden  china  of  the  most 
marvellous  beauty ;  the  candelabra  in  the  middle  of  immense 
size,  and  covered  with  groups  of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses, 
the  whole  mounted  on  green  velvet ;  even  the  salt-cellars  and 
handles  of  knives  and  forks  were  china,  most  charming  in  this 
weather ;  our  party  eight. 

[Undated.] 

Chandos's  dinner  was  a  banquet.  I  was  the  only  person 
there  not  an  M.P.  Peel  and  Sir  James  Graham  were  there  ; 
the  first  came  up  to  me  and  resumed  our  acquaintance  most 
flatteringly.  Chandos  introduced  me  to  Graham.  They 
went  down  by  water,  but  I  accompanied  Lyndhurst.  We 
came  home  in  two  omnibuses  hired  for  the  owner. 
What  do  you  think  of  Spain  ?  Trelawny,  who  is  a  Re- 
publican, is  in  raptures  with  the  prospects.  (  The  Spaniards,' 


332  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

he  says,  '  are  in  advance  of  all  countries ;  they  have  got  their 
constitution  of  1812  ! '  Says  James  Smith,  '  I  wish  I  had  got 
mine.' 

Aug.  20. 

I  suppose  you  have  recognised  four  bolts  of  veritable 
Olympian  thunder  in  The  Times.  It  is  considered  worthy 
of  Jove,  and  nobody  can  discover  behind  what  cloud  the 
god  is  shrouded.1 

The  thunderbolts  in  The  Times  were  in  the  form  of 
leading  articles  ;  but,  as  is  the  way  with  leading  articles, 
their  lightning  has  ceased  to  flash  and  their  thunder  to 
reverberate. 

When  lie  comes  in  the  autumn  to  his  now  customary 
review  in  the  diary  of  the  leading  events  of  the  year  the 
entries  are  :  — 

Establish  my  character  as  a  great  political  writer  by  the 
Letters  of  Runnymede.  Resume  my  acquaintance  with  Sir 
Robert  Peel.  My  influence  greatly  increases  from  the  per- 
fect confidence  of  L[yndhurst]  and  my  success  as  a  political 
writer.  Stayed  a  week  with  Bulwer  this  spring  and  intro- 
duced him  to  L.,  against  whom  he  was  bitterly  prejudiced. 
They  became  warm  friends.  I  must  not  forget  the  singular 
fate  of  my  friend  old  Lady  Salisbury  —  burnt  to  death  at 
Hatfield. 

And  then  follow  lists  of  names,  new  acquaintances  of 
recent  date,  or  merely  mnemonic  hints  to  recall  some 
incident  of  the  year — Francis  Baring  and  Lord  Ash- 
burton,  Croker,  Baring  Wall,  Duke  of  Beaufort,  'an 
amusing  character  —  Major  Fancourt,'  Lord  Mahon,  Lord 
Lincoln,  '  Trelawny —  a  strange  character,'  '  Maclise  —  a 
painter,'  Lord  Ashley  [afterwards  the  philanthropic  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury],  Mackworth  Praed,  Barnes, and  Sterling — 
but  whether  Edward  Sterling  of  The  Times  or  John,  his 
son,  the  subject  of  Carlyle's  biography,  we  are  left  to 
conjecture. 

'  It  is  a  very  remarkable  thing,'  said  Disraeli  to  Sir 
Philip  Rose,  on  some  occasion  when  the  Star  Chamber 
myth  had  been  revived, 

1  Letters,  pp.  105,  107. 


1836]  JOURNALISTIC   ACTIVITY  333 

that  whatever  may  have  been  ascribed  to  me  I  suppose 
there  are  few  men  who  ever  led  a  literary  and  political  life 
as  I  have  done  who  have  written  so  little  for  the  periodical 
Press ;  and  what  is  remarkable  is  that  I  can  positively  assert 
that  I  never  in  my  life  either  required  or  received  any  re- 
muneration for  anything  I  have  ever  written  except  for  the 
books  published  under  my  name.  Of  course,  I  have  written 
at  various  times  for  the  Press.  I  wrote  a  great  deal  at  one 
time  for  Lord  Lyndhurst,  but  I  never  either  received  or  would 
have  accepted  any  payment.  My  object  was  to  connect 
myself  with  a  man  who  Had  already  been  a  Minister,  and  who 
was  destined  to  take  a  conspicuous  part  in  public  affairs, 
and  to  establish  a  claim  upon  him  which  might  some  day  be 
useful,  but  I  never  held  any  engagement  on  the  Press  or 
accepted  any  remuneration ;  not  that  I  should  have  been 
the  least  ashamed  of  it  if  I  had  done  so,  but  it  is  not  the  fact. 

His  journalistic  activity  in  these  years  was  great. 
In  the  course  of  the  winter  of  1836  he  contributed  to 
The  Times  a  long-drawn  series  of  articles  under  the  title 
of  'A  New  Voyage  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor,  recently  dis- 
covered,' in  which,  as  the  title  suggests,  he  recurred  to 
the  method  of  allegory  adopted  in  Popanilla.  '  I  do  not,' 
said  Barnes,  '  see  much  object  in  allegorising  a  subject 
or  set  of  subjects  which  have  been  and  are  daily  discussed 
in  the  plainest  and  most  intelligible  terms'  ;  and  cer- 
tainly Runnymede  had  suffered  from  no  restraint  of 
reticence  that  could  be  removed  by  disguising  Melbourne 
as  '  Shrugshoulders  the  Grand  Vizier,'  or  Palmerston  as 
'  the  Vizier  for  Foreign  Affairs '  of  '  His  Majesty  King 
Mihrage.'  Sindbad,  accordingly,  had  none  of  the  success 
of  Runnymede.  Disraeli  also  tried  his  hand  at  political 
satires  in  verse.  There  is  'An  Heroic  Epistle  to  Lord 
Viscount  Mel  .  .  .  e '  in  The  Times  of  March  20,  1837  ; 
but  the  day  of  such  things  was  past,  and  when  some- 
what later  he  proposed  to  renew  his  poetical  declamation, 
on  this  occasion  in  blank  verse  instead  of  the  heroic 
couplet,  Barnes  was  not  encouraging  :  — '  Your  verses 
have  a  stately  march  and  the  sentiments  are  just,  but 
they  want  variety.  The  tone  is  a  high  one,  but  the 
sound  is  monotonous.' 


334  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

It  is  the  spoken  word,  however,  and  not  the  written, 
as  Lord  Salisbury  once  remarked,  that  in  the  end  governs 
England.  Disraeli's  activity  in  The  Times  may  have 
brought  him  no  pecuniary  reward,  but  it  brought  him 
something  else  that  he  valued  a  great  deal  more.  In 
December,  1836,  there  was  a  Conservative  banquet  at 
Aylesbury,  and  Disraeli,  to  whom  was  entrusted  the 
toast  of  the  House  of  Lords,  delighted  his  hearers  with 
a  speech  full  of  wit  and  vigour.  But  he  delighted  not 
only  his  hearers.  Through  the  favour  of  Barnes,  The 
Times  sent  down  a  special  staff  of  reporters  and  regaled 
its  readers  with  a  long  account  of  the  demonstration, 
Disraeli's  speech,  but  no  other,  being  given  in  the  first 
person.  'Now,'  wrote  his  sister,  'you  must  be  satisfied, 
that  you  have  succeeded  in  doing  that  which  you  so 
much  desired,  viz.,  to  make  a  speech  that  would  be 
talked  of  all  over  England.' 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Dec.  15. 

The  Spectator  said  of  the  Bucks  meeting  that  the  '  speaking, 
on  the  whole,  was  as  stupid  as  usual,  except  Mr.  Disraeli, 
who,  after  a  little  of  his  usual  rhodomontade  about  the 
Peers  being  the  founders  of  liberty,  grew  abusive  and 
amusing,'  and  then  quoted  the  Shakespearean  passage. 

The  Shakespearean  passage  is  worth  quoting  again. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Prime  Minister  of  the  Sovereign 
rather  winks  approbation  at  this  assault  upon  the  House  of 
Lords  than  leads  on  the  assailants.  It  may  be  so :  discretion 
may  be  the  better  part  of  valour  even  in  Downing  Street. 
The  gay  Epicurean  leader  may  summon  his  forces  and  yet 
may  refuse  to  march  through  Coventry  with  them.  .  .  . 
He  has  placed  a  Justice  Shallow  in  the  Cabinet,  assigned  the 
seals  of  one  office  to  Master  Silence,  and  entrusted  the  manage- 
ment of  our  foreign  affairs  to  Master  Slender.  But  the  rank 
and  file  who,  after  all,  are  the  men  to  fight  at  Shrewsbury  — 
he  turns  up  his  nose  at  these  —  at  Mouldy  and  Wart,  and 
Shadow  and  Forcible  Feeble,  and  Bull  Calf  bellowing  out 
'  Down  with  the  House  of  Lords,'  and  who  must  surely 
have  been  a  member  for  one  of  the  metropolitan  districts; 


1836]  SPEECH   AT   AYLESBURY  335 

our  Falstaff  of  the  Treasury  will  not  lead  these  fellows  to  the 
field.  If  we  add  to  these  the  Milesian  Pistol  and  his  raga- 
muffin tail  of  cut-purse  Nyins  and  drunken  Bardolphs  the 
political  picture  is  complete  ;  and  these  —  these  are  our  rulers. 

More  to  the  taste  of  his  audience,  probably,  was  the 
following  attack  on  O'Connell. 

A  denunciation  has  gone  forth  against  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  from  whom  ?  From  the  paid  agent  of  the  Papacy. 
I  am  not  surprised  at  this.  It  is  as  natural  for  Mr.  O'Connell 
to  cry  out  '  Down  with  the  House  of  Lords '  as  for  a  robber 
to  cry  out  'Down  with  the  gallows.'  Both  are  national 
institutions  very  inconvenient  in  their  respective  careers. 
.  .  .  'Down  with  the  House  of  Lords,'  cries  Mr. 
O'Connell.  Ay,  down  with  the  only  barrier  between  him 
and  his  disastrous  machinations.  The  House  of  Lords  is  a 
great  breakwater  of  sedition  that  his  waves  of  commotion  will 
beat  against  in  vain.  .  .  .  When  I  listen  to  him  I  am 
reminded  of  what  the  great  Dean  Swift  said  of  a  gentleman 
who  was  almost  as  anxious  to  plunder  the  people  of  Ireland 
as  Mr.  O'Connell  himself,  though  not  quite  so  successful  — 
I  mean  William  Wood,  who  tried  to  impose  on  them  with 
brass  farthings,  '  These  are  the  last  howls  of  a  dog  dissected 
alive.'1 

This  sally  was  greeted  with  'loud  and  continued 
cheers,'  and  made  a  tremendous  noise. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Dec.  15. 

O'Connell  makes  no  reply;  all  the  Irish  papers  taunt 
him.  The  Warder  says  'he  can  find  time  to  attack  Fraser, 
O'Connor,  and  D.  W.  Harvey,  and  to  call  Mr.  Lascelles  a 
blockhead,  but  why  does  he  not  answer  Disraeli  ?  "  Will 
not  the  dog  dissected  alive  give  another  howl  ? " '  All  the 
country  papers  are  full  of  it.  Lord  Strangford,  who  came  up 
from  Strathfieldsaye  last  night,  began,  '  You  have  no  idea  of 
the  sensation  your  speech  has  produced  at  Strathfieldsaye.' 
I  said,  '  Oh,  my  lord,  you  always  say  agreeable  things.'  He 
took  me  aside  and  said,  '  I  give  you  my  honour  as  a  gentleman 
that  the  Duke  said  at  the  dinner-table,  "  It  was  the  most  manly 
thing  done  yet ;  when  will  he  come  into  Parliament  ?  "  ' 2 

1  The  Times,  Dec.  10,  1836. 
8  Letters,  p.  107, 


336  POLITICAL   WRITINGS  [CHAP,  xiv 

After  this  pronouncement  by  the  greatest  Englishman 
of  the  day  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said. 


From  Lord  Lyndhurst. 


PARIS, 

Dec.,  1836. 


MY  DEAR  DISRAELI, 

Sindbad  tells  me  you  are  in  London  and  active  in  the 
great  cause  —  able  and  active  as  usual.  The  Bucks  dinner  was 
a  grand  demonstration,  and  has  placed  you  in  an  admirable 
position  as  far  as  character  and  reputation  are  concerned. 
It  will  be  infamous  if  not  followed  up  by  some  effort  to  place 
you  in  a  position  which  may  give  the  party  the  full  benefit 
of  your  talents  and  of  your  activity  and  untiring  zeal.  .  .  . 
It  is  hard  indeed  if  we  don't  get  you  into  the  House.  The 
Duke,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  is  your  friend.  .  .  . 

They  are  beginning  here  to  hate  us,  and  they  invent 
all  sorts  of  lies  as  a  ground  for  abuse.  As  to  Palmerston 
and  the  Ministers  in  general,  they  are  never  named  in 
society  without  expressions  of  ridicule  and  contempt.  .  .  . 

Suppose  (which  I  think  not  improbable)  there  should  be  a 
break-up  of  our  Government,  how  are  the  parts  to  be  cast 
in  the  Tory  Administration  ?  This  a  difficult  affair.  I 
find  they  talk  of  me  as  Home  Secretary.  I  could  not  afford 
it.  What  will  they  do  with  Chandos  :  he  is  become  a  very 
important  person.  His  hold  of  the  country  is  most  powerful 
and.  extensive.  Will  Peel  have  many  of  his  own  click? 
Give  me  all  the  information  you  can,  and  as  often  as  you 
can.  .  .  . 

I  am  now  reading  the  love  of  Henrietta.  I  only  got  the 
book  this  morning.  Mrs.  Gore  lent  it  to  me.  She  says  it  is 
the  best  thing  you  have  written  since  Vivian  Grey.  .  .  . 
What  I  have  read  of  it  is  light  and  brilliant  and  sparkling 
and  impassioned,  and  all  that  such  a  work  ought  to  be. 

Ever  yours, 

L. 


CHAPTER   XV 

HENRIETTA  TEMPLE  AND  VENETIA 
1834-1837 

Difficile  est  longum  subito  deponere  amorem : 
Difficile  est,  verum  hoc  qua  lubet  efficias. 

As  we  see  from  Lyndhurst's  letter  at  the  end  of  the 
last  chapter  Henrietta  Temple  had  been  published  shortly 
before  the  close  of  1836  ;  and  a  few  months  later  it  was 
followed  by  Venetia. 

Henrietta  Temple  and  Venetia  are  not  political  works, 
but  they  would  commemorate  feelings  more  enduring  than 
public  passions,  and  they  were  written  with  care,  and  some 
delight.  They  were  inscribed  to  two  friends,  the  best  I  ever 
had,  and  not  the  least  gifted.  One  was  the  inimitable 
D'Orsay,  the  most  accomplished  and  the  most  engaging 
character  that  has  figured  in  this  century,  who,  with  the  form 
and  universal  genius  of  an  Alcibiades,  combined  a  brilliant 
wit  and  a  heart  of  quick  affection,  and  who,  placed  in  a  public 
position,  would  have  displayed  a  courage,  a  judgment,  and  a 
commanding  intelligence  which  would  have  ranked  him  with 
the  leaders  of  mankind.  The  other  was  one  who  had 
enjoyed  that  public  opportunity  which  had  been  denied  to 
Comte  D'Orsay.  The  world  has  recognised  the  political 
courage,  the  versatile  ability,  and  the  masculine  eloquence 
of  Lord  Lyndhurst ;  but  his  intimates  only  were  acquainted 
with  the  tenderness  of  his  disposition,  the  sweetness  of  his 
temper,  his  ripe  scholarship,  and  the  playfulness  of  his  bright 
and  airy  spirit.1 

1  General  Preface  to  the  Novels,  1870. 
VOL.  i  —  z  337 


338  HENRIETTA  TEMPLE  AND   VENETIA     [CHAP,  xv 

Since  the  failure  of  the  Revolutionary  Epick  in  1834 
Disraeli  seemed,  save  for  a  few  slight  contributions  to 
Heath's  Book  of  Beauty,  of  which  his  friend  Lady  Bles- 
sington  was  editor,  to  have  abandoned  the  field  of 
imaginative  literature  ;  but  he  had  begun  Henrietta 
Temple  in  the  summer  of  1834,  and  written  a  volume 
before  he  threw  the  novel  aside.  Politics,  social  engage- 
ments, and  the  worry  and  burden  of  his  debts  sufficiently 
occupied  both  his  time  and  energy  for  the  next  couple 
of  years,  but  eventually  the  urgent  need  of  money  com- 
pelled him  to  pick  up  the  discarded  manuscript.  '  I  have 
agreed  to  let  Colburn  have  a  novel  .  .  .  for  a 
greater  sum  than  I  have  ever  yet  received,'  he  writes 
to  Bradenham  in  June,  1836.  The  announcement 
brought  no  pleasure  to  his  father.  *  How,'  he  anxiously 
inquires,  '  will  the  fictionist  assort  with  the  politician  ? 
Most  deeply  am  I  regretting  that  you  find  it  necessary 
to  return  to  drink  of  the  old  waters.'  Isaac  D 'Israeli, 
however,  knew  little  of  his  son's  embarrassments,  and  the 
need  for  money  was  far  more  pressing  than  he  realised. 
And  there  was  another  and  a  deeper  reason  that 
prompted  a  resumption  of  the  unfinished  story,  or,  at  all 
events,  made  a  resumption  no  longer  impossible.  When 
the  first  volume  was  composed  Disraeli  himself  was  in 
the  grip  of  a  strong  and  vehement  passion,  and  the  love 
story  could  no  more  have  been  carried  to  any  fitting  con- 
clusion then  than  could  Vivian  Grrey  or  Contarini  Fleming 
or  any  of  the  other  novels  which  are  chapters  in  an  auto- 
biography and  reflexions  of  an  uncompleted  personal 
experience.  But  in  the  years  that  had  since  elapsed 
the  experience  had  passed  into  another  phase.  Love, 
after  its  first  rapture  was  over,  had  come  into  conflict 
with  the  harder  side  of  Disraeli's  character,  with  his 
masterful  will  and  dsemonic  ambition  ;  and  in  the  clash 
between  will  and  passion  will  had  triumphed.  The 
connexion  between  his  own  Henrietta  and  the  novel 
is  indicated  by  a  laconic  entry  in  the  Mutilated 
Diary. 


1836]  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE  339 

Autumn  of  1836.  —  Parted  for  ever  from  Henrietta.  Re- 
turned to  Bradenham  at  the  latter  end  of  August;  concluded 
Henrietta  Temple,  of  which  one  volume  had  been  written  three 
years.  It  was  published  early  in  December,  and  was  very 
successful. 

*  Henrietta  Temple  :  a  Love  Story,'  was  the  full  title 
of  the  book.  Ferdinand  Armine,  the  heir  of  an  ancient 
but  impoverished  Catholic  family,  heir  also  as  he  fancies 
to  a  great  estate  on  his  mother's  side  of  the  house,  is 
with  his  regiment  at  Malta,  and  living  the  life  of  a  spend- 
thrift, when  he  learns  that  he  is  disinherited,  and  that 
the  estate  has  gone  to  another,  his  cousin,  Katherine 
Grandison.  Overwhelmed  with  debt,  he  returns  to 
England,  and  finds  in  the  heiress  a  beautiful  girl  unversed 
in  the  ways  of  the  world,  whom,  as  the  easiest  mode  of 
escape  from  his  embarrassments,  he  at  once  determines  to 
marry.  Handsome  and  brilliant,  he  easily  captivates  her 
and  they  become  engaged,  though  on  his  side,  at  all 
events,  there  is  no  spark  of  love.  But  soon  afterwards  he 
meets  Henrietta  Temple,  and  love,  instant  and  overwhelm- 
ing, takes  possession  of  his  soul. 

There  is  no  love  but  love  at  first  sight.  This  is  the 
transcendent  and  surpassing  offspring  of  sheer  and  un- 
polluted sympathy.  All  other  is  the  illegitimate  result  of 
observation,  of  reflection,  of  compromise,  of  comparison,  of 
expediency.  The  passions  that  endure  flash  like  the  lightning: 
they  scorch  the  soul,  but  it  is  warmed  for  ever.1 

Henrietta  returns  his  passion  and  they  exchange  vows, 
Ferdinand  persuading  her  into  secrecy  for  a  time  and  con- 
cealing from  her  his  engagement  to  Katherine,  which  he 
determines,  however,  to  break  at  once.  But  the  pressure 
of  his  debts  and  the  fear  of  bringing  ruin  and  disgrace 
upon  his  father  and  mother  counsel  delay  and  he  becomes 
involved  in  a  course  of  double-dealing  which  soon  ends 
in  catastrophe.  Henrietta  and  her  father  discover  the 
prior  engagement  and  draw  the  worst  conclusions  ;  and 

i  Bk.  II.  ch.  4. 


340  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND   VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

the  rupture  that  follows  is  nearly  fatal  to  both  the  lovers. 
After  some  interval  they  meet  again  and  love  is  not  yet 
dead  though  it  has  fallen  on  evil  days.  Chance  has  made 
Henrietta  one  of  the  greatest  heiresses  in  England  and 
under  pressure  from  her  father  she  has  become  the 
affianced  bride  of  Lord  Montfort  the  heir  to  a  dukedom. 
The  knot  gets  more  and  more  entangled  till  we  find 
Ferdinand  in  a  sponging  house  under  arrest  for  debt, 
his  engagement  with  his  cousin,  which  was  the  mainstay  of 
his  credit,  openly  terminated,  and  his  heart  nearly  broken 
by  the  loss  of  Henrietta  ;  but  when  things  are  at  their 
worst  everything  is  set  right  by  the  skilful  diplomacy  of 
Count  Alcibiades  de  Mirabel,  who  is  D'Orsay  drawn  to  the 
life  and  with  very  little  pretence  of  concealment  or  dis- 
guise. Ferdinand  is  reunited  to  Henrietta,  and  Lord 
Montfort  and  Miss  Grandison  find  consolation  for  their 
disappointment  in  an  interchange  of  their  more  tranquil 
and  accommodating  affections. 

The  interest  of  the  novel  as  a  love  story  lies  mainly  in 
that  first  volume,1  which  takes  its  inspiration  from  a 
vivid  personal  experience.  Some  of  Disraeli's  critics 
after  reading  Henrietta  Temple  have  contrived  to  pro- 
nounce the  love  in  it  affected  and  unreal ;  but  it  would 
be  hard  in  the  annals  of  criticism  to  find  a  more  notable 
instance  of  the  perverse  human  tendency  to  ignore  obvious 
facts  when  they  refuse  to  fit  a  theory.  In  the  second 
book  of  the  novel  we  have  a  picture  of  first  love  at  the 
height  of  its  spiritual  ardour  and  intensity  which  only  a 
man  who  had  really  loved  himself  could  ever  have  pro- 
duced. Disraeli  indeed  had  not  the  simplicity  of  touch 
which  achieves  the  supreme  lyric  effect.  That  is  the 
privilege  of  the  greatest  masters  and  of  them  alone  ;  but 
of  the  essential  truth  and  sincerity  of  his  picture  no 
unbiased  reader  can  really  feel  a  doubt. 

Amid  the  gloom  and  travail  of  existence  suddenly  to  behold 
a  beautiful  being,  and  as  instantaneously  to  feel  an  over- 
whelming conviction  that  with  that  fair  form  for  ever  our 

1  Including  Books  I.  and  II.  of  the  ordinary  editions. 


1836]  TWO  CONCEPTIONS  OF  LOVE  341 

destiny  must  be  entwined ;  that  there  is  no  more  joy  but  in 
her  joy,  no  sorrow  but  when  she  grieves ;  that  in  her  sigh  of 
love,  in  her  smile  of  fondness,  hereafter  is  all  bliss ;  to  feel 
our  flaunty  ambition  fade  away  like  a  shrivelled  gourd  before 
her  vision  ;  to  feel  fame  a  juggle  and  posterity  a  lie  ;  and  to 
be  prepared  at  once,  for  this  great  object,  to  forfeit  and  fling 
away  all  former  hopes,  ties,  schemes,  views ;  to  violate  in 
her  favour  every  duty  of  society  ;  this  is  a  lover,  and  this  is 
love  !  Magnificent,  sublime,  divine  sentiment !  An  immortal 
flame  burns  in  the  breast  of  that  man  who  adores  and  is  adored. 
He  is  an  ethereal  being.  The  accidents  of  earth  touch  him  not. 
Revolutions  of  Empire,  changes  of  creed,  mutations  of  opinion, 
are  to  him  but  the  clouds  and  meteors  of  a  stormy  sky.  The 
schemes  and  struggles  of  mankind  are,  in  his  thinking,  but 
the  anxieties  of  pigmies  and  the  fantastical  achievements  of 
apes.  Nothing  can  subdue  him.  He  laughs  alike  at  loss  of 
fortune,  loss  of  friends,  loss  of  character.  The  deeds  and 
thoughts  of  men  are  to  him  equally  indifferent.  He  does  not 
mingle  in  their  paths  of  callous  bustle,  or  hold  himself  respon- 
sible to  the  airy  impostures  before  which  they  bow  down. 
He  is  a  mariner,  who,  in  the  sea  of  life,  keeps  his  gaze  fixedly 
on  a  single  star;  and  if  that  do  not  shine,  he  lets  go  the 
rudder,  and  glories  when  his  bark  descends  into  the  bottomless 
gulf.1 

When  that  passage  was  written  Disraeli,  we  may 
believe,  sincerely  felt  for  the  moment  that  the  world 
could  be  well  lost  for  love ;  but  with  a  nature  such  as 
his  the  mood  could  hardly  last.  We  find  it  succeeded 
by  another,  which,  if  less  heroic,  is  more  serene,  as  we 
advance  into  the  later  volumes  of  the  novel. 

Love  is  inspiration;  it  encourages  to  great  deeds,  and 
develops  the  creative  faculty  of  our  nature.  ...  It 
is  woman  whose  prescient  admiration  strings  the  lyre  of  the 
desponding  poet,  whose  genius  is  afterwards  to  be  recognised 
by  his  race,  and  which  often  embalms  the  memory  of  the  gentle 
mistress  whose  kindness  solaced  him  in  less  glorious  hours. 
How  many  an  official  portfolio  would  never  have  been  carried, 
had  it  not  been  for  her  sanguine  spirit  and  assiduous  love ! 
How  many  a  depressed  and  despairing  advocate  has  clutched 
the  Great  Seal  and  taken  his  precedence  before  princes,  borne 
onward  by  the  breeze  of  her  inspiring  hope,  and  illumined 

i  Bk.  II.  ch.  4. 


342  HENRIETTA  TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

by  the  sunshine  of  her  prophetic  smile  !  A  female  friend, 
amiable,  clever,  and  devoted,  is  a  possession  more  valuable 
than  parks  and  palaces ;  and,  without  such  a  muse,  few  men 
can  succeed  in  life,  none  be  content.1 

The  temperature  has  now  fallen  and  all  the  uncalcu- 
lating  vehemence  of  love  is  gone.  In  its  earlier  present- 
ment the  passion  of  Ferdinand  and  Henrietta  is  strangely 
free  from  all  admixture  of  sense  ;  from  the  artistic  point 
of  view  it  might  indeed  be  better  if  there  were  more, 
for  the  sensuous  element  refined  and  sublimated  in  the 
furnace  of  the  imagination  is  a  necessary  ingredient  in 
the  poetry  of  love ;  but  if  the  sensuous  element  is  absent 
there  is  no  lack  of  spiritual  warmth  and  fire.  In  the  later 
volumes  of  the  novel,  however,  this  is  changed :  even  the 
spiritual  glow  of  passion  has  now  died  away,  and  love 
has  passed  into  a  sentiment  which  though  pure  and  ten- 
der and  reverent  is  of  the  intellect  rather  than  of  the 
soul. 

The  portion  of  the  novel  which  was  written  in  the 
autumn  of  1836  betrays  many  signs  of  crudity  in 
conception  and  haste  in  execution.  The  images  of 
Ferdinand  and  Henrietta  are  both  in  some  degree 
defaced.  Ferdinand  shows  himself  such  a  selfish  and 
deceitful  egoist  in  his  love  that  our  sympathy  is  to  a 
great  extent  estranged ;  and  in  spite  of  the  tact  and 
skill  with  which  the  author  prepares  us  for  the  defection 
of  Henrietta  her  fickleness  cannot  be  wholly  disguised. 
In  the  conditions  of  their  genesis  there  is  some 
resemblance  between  Henrietta  Temple  and  the  first  part 
of  Vivian  Q-rey,  in  either  case  a  discarded  manuscript 
having  been  picked  up  again  after  the  original  creative 
impulse  had  lost  its  force.  But  since  the  days  of  Vivian 
G-rey  Disraeli  had  gained  immensely  in  experience  both 
as  an  artist  and  as  a  man,  and  with  all  its  imperfec- 
tions the  supplementary  work  in  Henrietta  Temple  is  far 
different  in  literary  value  from  the  concluding  chapters 
of  his  first  novel.  If  the  lyric  rapture  of  first  love  is 

i  Bk.  III.  ch.  4. 


1836]  PORTRAITS   FROM   LIFE  343 

partly  lost  we  are  given  a  good  deal  of  delightful  comedy 
in  recompense,  and  many  of  the  secondary  characters 
now  introduced  are  admirable.  Lady  Bellair  is  an 
amusing  portrait  of  Disraeli's  eccentric  friend  and  ally, 
of  whom  we  have  heard  more  than  once  —  old  Lady  Cork. 
The  unimpassioned  Montfort,  with  whom  '  life  was  the 
romance  of  reason,'  as  with  Ferdinand  it  was  '  the 
romance  of  imagination,'  may  seem  at  the  first  view 
artificial,  but  he  is  of  the  Disraelian  line  of  Beckendorff 
and  Winter,  and  interesting  as  the  immediate  precursor 
of  Sidonia.  Then  there  is  Mr.  Bond  Sharpe,  apparently 
drawn  from  Crockford  ;  the  little  waiter  in  the  sponging 
house  from  some  unknown  model  who  allowed  Disraeli 
to  catch  his  likeness  and  was  lost  in  obscurity  again  ; 
and  Mirabel's  companions,  Mr.  Bevil,  who  'never  per- 
mitted himself  to  smile  except  in  the  society  of  intimate 
friends,'  Lord  Catchimwhocan,  '  that  dear  Catch  who 
was  always  repeating  nonsense  which  he  heard  from 
somebody  else,'  and  Charles  Doricourt,  whom  the  world 
called  Charley,  '  from  which  it  will  be  inferred  that 
he  was  a  privileged  person,  and  was  applauded  for  a 
thousand  actions  which  in  any  one  else  would  have  been 
met  with  decided  reprobation.'  But  by  far  the  most 
attractive  character  of  all,  perhaps  the  most  attractive 
that  Disraeli  ever  created  or  drew,  is  de  Mirabel  himself, 
in  whom  the  wit,  the  gaiety,  the  charm,  the  generosity, 
and  the  insouciance  of  D'Orsay  are  enshrined  for  the 
benefit  of  future  generations. 

There  was  something  in  Count  Mirabel's  very  presence 
which  put  everybody  in  good  spirits.  His  lightheartedness 
was  caught  by  all.  Melancholy  was  a  farce  in  the  presence  of 
his  smile ;  and  there  was  no  possible  combination  of  scrapes 
that  could  withstand  Ms  kind  and  brilliant  raillery.1 

His  radiant  figure  lights  up  all  the  concluding  scenes 
and  makes  the  last  book,  with  its  reconciliation  of  the 
lovers,  the  most  readable  in  the  novel. 

i  Bk.  VI.  ch.  14. 


344  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Dec.  15,  1836. 

Strangford  [fresh  from  Strathfieldsaye]  said  he  had  not 
yet  seen  my  novel,  and  there  was  only  one  person  at  the 
Duke's  who  had  read  it  —  Lady  Wilton.  She  said  she  had 
cried  so  much  that  she  had  excited  all  their  curiosity. 
Bulwer  tells  me  that  at  Lady  Charlotte  Bury's  the  other 
night  he  only  heard  one  report,  '  Tears,  tears,  tears ! '  so  he 
supposes  I  am  right  and  he  is  wrong.  Colburn  is  in  high 
spirits  about  H.  T.  He  says  he  shall  not  be  content  unless 
he  works  it  up  like  Pelham.  There  were  many  reviews 
yesterday.  You  have  of  course  seen  the  Athenaeum;  they 
were  all  in  that  vein,  but  highly  calculated  to  make  people 
read,  if  they  were  wanted,  but  it  is  not.1 

'  This  vexatious,  high-flown,  foolish,  clever  work,' 
the  Athenaeum  called  it.  Colburn  had  not  lost  his  skill 
in  working  up  a  novel.  '  I  hope,'  he  writes  while  the 
book  is  in  the  stocks,  'you  will  have  a  dozen  more 
originals  to  draw  from  besides  old  Lady  C.  ;  an  exhibi- 
tion of  two  or  three  leading  political  characters  would 
not  be  amiss ' ;  and  in  another  letter  he  *  wants  to 
know  all  he  can  that  he  may  say  something  about  it 
in  the  papers  to  excite  curiosity  and  expectation 
without  in  the  least  gratifying  it.'  With  Colburn's 
arts  to  aid  its  intrinsic  merits  Henrietta  Temple 
was  more  successful  than  any  of  Disraeli's  novels 
that  had  appeared  since  Vivian  G-rey.  Some  of  his 
friends,  however,  were  disappointed.  Bulwer  'thinks 
my  speech  the  finest  in  the  world  and  my  novel  the 
worst,'  he  writes  to  his  sister  ;  and  D'Orsay  and  Lady 
Blessington  apparently  agree  with  Bulwer.  There  has 
been  a  curious  divergence  of  view  among  the  critics 
ever  since.  Those  to  whom  Disraeli  is  primarily  a 
politician  and  his  distinctive  work  in  literature  the  crea- 
tion of  the  political  novel  despise  Henrietta  Temple 
because  of  the  absence  of  political  motive.  To  Froude, 
for  instance,  it  is  a  '  clever  story,  but  without  the  merit 
or  the  interest  which  would  have  given  it  a  permanent 

1  Letters,  p.  108. 


1836]  SUCCESS   OF   HENRIETTA  345 

place  in  English  literature.'1  Tennyson,  on  the  other 
hand,  '  told  Disraeli  that  the  "  silly  sooth "  of  love 
was  given  perfectly  there''2;  and  Leslie  Stephen3  speaks 
of  Henrietta  and  Contarini  as  '  Disraeli's  most  satisfactory 
performances,'  because  in  these  'he  has  worked  without 
any  secondary  political  purpose,  and  has,  therefore,  pro- 
duced more  harmonious  results.' 


From  Count  D*  Or  say. 

MON  CHER  Dis, 

J'ai  requ  votre  lettre  avec  plaisir,  et  votre  dedicace  avec 
fierte.  Le  mot  d'affectionne  ami  s'applique  tout  aussi  bien 
a  mes  sentiments  pour  vous  que  les  votres  envers  moi.  Je 
regrette  seulement  que  Mirabel  ait  fait  connaissance  avec 
Armine  dans  un  Hell.  C'etait  probablement  pour  chauffer 
leurs  sentiments  au  premier  abord  que  vous  avez  eu  recoups 
a  ce  moyen  qui  e*tait  inutile.  J'espere  bientot  vous  revoir, 
pour  vous  repeter  combien  votre  dedicace  est  vraie. 
Votre  affectionne  ami, 

ALFRED  D'ORSAY. 


From  Alfred  Tennyson. 

CLAPHAM  COMMON, 

April  28,  1868. 

DEAR  MR.  DISRAELI, 

Pray  accept  my  best  thanks  for  the  instant  attention  you 
have  paid  to  this  small  matter  of  mine.  .  .  .  Though 
the  result  appears  to  be  nil,  I  do  not  the  less  feel  an  obligation 
to  you ;  and  am  quite  as  much  pleased  to  know  that  it  is 
owing  to  the  author  of  that  charming  love  story,  Henrietta 
Temple,  as  to  the  Prime  Minister  of  England. 

Believe  me,  ever  yours  truly, 

A.  TENNYSON. 


One  of  Disraeli's  critics  disputed  the  truth  and  accuracy 
of  the  scenes  in  the  sponging  house  in  Henrietta  Temple 
and  of  Ferdinand's  interview  with  Levison,  of  the  money- 

1  Lord  Beaconsfield,  p.  215.  a  Life,  EL,  p.  371. 

8  Hours  in  a  Library,  II.,  p.  130. 


346  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

lending  firm  of  Messrs.  Morris  and  Levison  ;  and  con- 
gratulated the  author  on  having  escaped  the  '  usurious 
experience '  himself.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  author's 
knowledge  of  these  things  was  far  greater  than  his  critic's. 
Since  his  return  from  the  East,  Disraeli's  pecuniary 
embarrassments  had  multiplied  and  increased.  In  the 
debtor's  career  it  is  the  first  step  that  is  decisive. 

If  youth  but  knew  the  fatal  misery  that  they  are  entailing 
on  themselves  the  moment  they  accept  a  pecuniary  credit 
to  which  they  are  not  entitled,  how  they  would  start  in  their 
career !  How  pale  they  would  turn !  How  they  would 
tremble,  and  clasp  their  hands  in  agony  at  the  precipice  on 
which  they  are  disporting!  Debt  .  .  .  hath  a  small 
beginning,  but  a  giant's  growth  and  strength.  When  we 
make  the  monster  we  make  our  master,  who  haunts  us  at 
all  hours,  and  shakes  his  whip  of  scorpions  for  ever  in  our 
sight.  Faustus,  when  he  signed  the  bond  with  blood,  did  not 
secure  a  doom  more  terrific.1 

Disraeli  had  committed  the  first  fatal  blunder  while 
he  was  still  young,  and  had  never  succeeded  in  retrieving 
it.  Since  his  return  from  the  East  four  contested  elec- 
tions, extravagant  companions,  and  an  expensive  social 
environment  had  increased  his  liabilities  and  led  him 
deeper  into  the  mire.  He  was  by  nature  generous  and 
open-handed,  caring  only  for  money  as  he  loved  to  spend 
it  freely,  and  with  no  gift  of  acquisitiveness  or  power  of 
accumulation.  Debt  soon  makes  a  man  improvident, 
if  it  does  not  find  him  so  ;  his  financial  vision  ceases  to 
extend  beyond  the  date  at  which  the  next  bill  matures, 
and  if,  like  Disraeli,  he  be  of  a  sanguine  temperament, 
he  readily  convinces  himself  that  a  respite  is  the  equivalent 
of  a  reprieve,  and  that  if  only  time  can  be  secured  every- 
thing will  settle  itself.  During  a  great  part  of  his  life, 
and  in  these  years  especially,  Disraeli  was  in  the  grip  of 
the  moneylenders,  never  escaping  from  an  atmosphere 
of  bills,  writs,  annuities,  renewals,  discountings,  assign- 
ments, and  all  the  other  processes  which  are  the  imple- 

1  Henrietta  Temple,  Bk.  II.  ch.  1. 


1836]  DISRAELI'S   DEBTS  347 

ments  and  appurtenances  of  usury.  Amid  the  worries  and 
vexations  of  such  a  life  most  men  would  have  found 
serious  work  or  even  serious  enjoyment  utterly  im- 
possible, but  Disraeli  contrived  to  pursue  his  pleasures, 
his  labours  and  his  ambitions  with  a  wonderful  serenity 
through  all.  'As  from  fear  of  the  Philistines  I  cannot 
come  and  dine  with  you,  you  must  come  and  dine  with 
me,'  he  writes  to  Austen  one  day  in  1833.  '  I  am  over- 
whelmed with  difficulties,'  he  tells  him  in  another  letter 
of  the  same  year,  though  '  all  that  is  necessary  to  settle 
my  affairs  is  six  months  of  quiet.'  A  couple  of  years 
later  the  situation  is  much  the  same.  '  My  affairs  have 
been  so  involved,'  he  says  in  answer  to  a  complaint  that 
he  is  neglecting  his  friends,  'that  seclusion,  absolute 
seclusion  from  society  and  severe  daily  labour  have  been 
to  me  as  much  a  matter  of  necessity  as  choice.'  But 
he  has  now  '  more  than  a  prospect  of  almost  immediately 
emancipating  himself  from  sufferings  not  easy  to  describe.' 
'  Circumstances  have  placed  him  behind  the  curtain  of 
financial  politics,'  and  he  reckons  among  his  assets 
.£1,000  which  he  is  shortly  to  receive,  'the  result  of  a 
piece  of  business  which  has  engaged  my  attention  during 
the  last  five  months,  and  respecting  which  I  have  twice 
visited  The  Hague.'  This  was  written  at  the  beginning 
of  1836,  and  in  the  Mutilated  Diary  about  the  same  time 
there  is  a  laconic  entry,  '  Haber  again,'  which  points  to 
some  connexion  between  the  financial  politics  in  question 
and  the  Baron  de  Haber,1  with  whom  Disraeli  had 
collaborated  in  the  Grdllomania  several  years  before.  The 
business  seems  to  have  been  some  affair  of  a  Swedish 
loan,  and  it  was  carried  to  a  stage  where,  in  the  sanguine 
view  of  Disraeli,  only  formal  difficulties  stood  between 
him  and  his  reward.  Apparently,  however,  the  reward 
never  came,  and  when  '  from  the  strange  aspect  of  the 

1  Haber  was  at  this  time  the  head  of  a  financial  house  with  a  branch 
at  The  Hague  among  other  places  on  the  Continent,  and  Disraeli  was 
no  doubt  acting  for  the  moment,  or  aspiring  to  act,  as  his  London 
agent. 


348  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE  AND  VENETIA   [CHAP,  xv 

money  market  any  immediate  prospect  of  a  favourable 
nature  grew  desperate,'  he  was  compelled  to  'engage 
in  an  intellectual  effort,  painful  at  all  times,  under  such 
circumstances  a  very  terrible  exertion,'  in  order,  if  possible, 
to  meet  the  demands  of  his  creditors ;  the  intellectual 
effort  being  the  completion  of  Henrietta  Temple. 

In  these  early  years  his  liabilities  probably  amounted 
to  no  more  than  a  few  thousand  pounds,  a  sum  which 
would  not  have  been  beyond  the  competence  of  his 
father  to  provide,  but  throughout  he  showed  the  greatest 
reluctance  to  seek  assistance  from  his  father.  'In  the 
most  important  step  of  a  man's  life,'  he  writes  on  one 
occasion  to  Austen,  who  had  advised  such  an  application, 
'I  have  opposed  his  earnest  wishes,  and  have  based 
my  dutiful  opposition  upon  my  independence.  I  do 
not  wish  by  extraordinary  money  applications  to  one 
who  is  always  very  generous  to  me,  to  revive  a  most 
painful  subject.'  On  another  occasion  when  the  stress 
was  even  greater  Austen  repeated  his  advice,  urging 
that  this  objection  should  yield  to  force  of  circumstances 
lest  character  should  be  compromised ;  but  Disraeli  still 
clung  to  his  precarious  independence  and  persisted  in 
his  policy  of  faith  in  the  future  and  temporary  expedients 
for  the  present.  An  undated  letter  of  these  years, 
which  might  well  have  been  signed  Alcibiades  de  Mirabel, 
will  give  the  atmosphere  better  than  pages  of  accounts  or 
disquisition. 

From  Count  D'Orsay. 

I  swear  before  God  that  I  have  not  six  pence  at  my  banker 
now,  having  lost  the  night  before  last  £325.  You  may  judge 
how  disappointed  I  am  not  to  be  able  to  assist  you,  but  if  you 
find  that  I  could  be  of  any  use  to  you  in  the  way  of  security  I 
will  do  for  you  what  I  would  not  do  for  any  other. 

Yours  affectionately, 

D'ORSAY. 

Such  was  the  school  of  finance  in  which  our  future 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  graduated.  Let  it  be 


1836]  FINANCIAL  INTEGRITY  349 

said  at  once,  however,  that  though  Disraeli  ran  through 
the  whole  gamut  of  the  debtor's  customary  experience, 
was  guilty  of  all  the  improvidence  to  which  embarrass- 
ment surely  leads,  submitted  perforce  to  all  the  humilia- 
tions which  it  carries  in  its  train,  was  skilled  in  all  the 
subterfuges  by  which  debtors  commonly  evade  the 
importunity  of  greedy  and  exacting  creditors,  and  too 
often  caused  annoyance  to  obliging  friends  by  reluctant 
but  unavoidable  disappointment  of  their  hopes,  nothing 
that  seriously  touches  his  character  is  to  be  deduced  from 
the  records  as  they  have  been  preserved  ;  and  in  the 
matter  of  records  Disraeli  showed  himself  splendidly 
indifferent  to  posterity  or  splendidly  confident  as  to 
its  verdict.  In  his  career  from  beginning  to  end  there 
is  no  trace  of  any  money  transaction  that  will  not  bear 
investigation,  and  if  we  waive  the  inevitably  squalid 
details  of  a  life  of  embarrassment,  nothing  that  infringes 
the  code  of  'the  man  of  honour  '  or  'the  gentleman.'  It 
might  even  be  urged  that  his  debts  themselves  had  a 
certain  disciplinary  value.  A  well-known  passage  in 
Tancred,  if  we  allow  for  some  whimsical  exaggeration, 
reflects  undoubtedly  a  personal  feeling  of  Disraeli's. 


Fakredeen  was  fond  of  his  debts ;  they  were  the  source  in- 
deed of  his  only  real  excitement,  and  he  was  grateful  to  them 
for  their  stirring  powers.  The  usurers  of  Syria  are  as  adroit 
and  callous  as  those  of  all  other  countries,  and  possess  no  doubt 
all  those  repulsive  qualities  which  are  the  consequence  of  an 
habitual  control  over  every  generous  emotion.  But,  instead  of 
viewing  them  with  feelings  of  vengeance  or  abhorrence, 
Fakredeen  studied  them  unceasingly  with  a  fine  and  profound 
investigation,  and  found  in  their  society  a  deep  psychological 
interest.  .  .  .  'What  should  I  be  without  my  debts?' 
he  would  sometimes  exclaim ;  '  dear  companions  of  my  life 
that  never  desert  me  !  All  my  knowledge  of  human  nature 
is  owing  to  them :  it  is  in  managing  my  affairs  that  I  have 
sounded  the  depths  of  the  human  heart,  recognised  all  the 
combinations  of  human  character,  developed  my  own  powers, 
and  mastered  the  resources  of  others.  What  expedient  in 
negotiation  is  unknown  to  me  ?  What  degree  of  endurance 
have  I  not  calculated  ?  What  play  of  the  countenance  have 


350  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND   VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

I  not  observed?  Yes,  among  my  creditors,  I  have  disciplined 
that  diplomatic  ability,  that  shall  some  day  confound  and 
control  cabinets.  Oh,  my  debts,  I  feel  your  presence  like 
that  of  guardian  angels !  If  I  be  lazy,  you  prick  me  to  action  ; 
if  elate,  you  subdue  me  to  reflection ;  and  thus  it  is  that 
you  alone  can  secure  that  continuous  yet  controlled  energy 
which  conquers  mankind.' 1 

No  doubt  like  Fakredeen  Disraeli  grew  '  sometimes  a 
little  wearied  even  of  the  choice  excitement  of  pecuniary 
embarrassment.  It  was  too  often  the  same  story,  the 
adventures  monotonous,  the  characters  identical.'  The 
characters,  however,  were  not  always  sordid.  From  those 
early  days  in  which  he  took  Evans,  his  fellow  clerk,  for 
partner  in  a  speculation  in  South  American  shares  he 
showed  a  notable  capacity  for  enlisting  the  good  offices 
of  friends,  for  inspiring  them  with  confidence  in  his  future, 
and  winning  and  retaining  their  affection.  '  The  singular 
good  services  of  Pyne  to  me '  is  an  entry  in  the  Mutilated 
Diary  for  1836.  Pyne  was  a  prosperous  solicitor  who 
had  succeeded  Austen  as  the  repository  of  Disraeli's 
confidence  in  these  unsavoury  matters,  and  Disraeli's 
letters  to  him,  luckily  preserved,  tell  a  tale  of  which  one 
hardly  knows  whether  it  calls  more  often  for  tears  or 
laughter.  By  May,  1836,  Disraeli,  through  Pyne's  good 
offices,  has  been  relieved  of  some  of  his  most  pressing 
claims,  and  elate  with  his  temporary  freedom  is  ready 
for  any  fresh  enterprise  that  presents  itself.  A  '  new 
weekly  journal  under  the  highest  patronage  '  is  about  to 
be  started  and  he  has  been  '  offered  and  has  provisionally 
accepted  half  the  proprietorship,  which  however  will 
require  .£500.'  'I  have  little  resources  except  the  X200, 
which  are  in  fact  yours,  but  I  think  I  could  scrape  enough 
together.  The  object  is  considerable.  This  speculation, 
if  there  be  any  virtue  in  calculation,  may  turn  out,  and 
quickly,  a  considerable  property.'  How  Pyne  regarded 
the  speculation  there  is  nothing  to  show,  but  by  July 
his  client  is  in  trouble  again.  '  Peel  has  asked  me  to 

1  Tancred,  Bk.  V.  ch.  3. 


1836]  PYNE'S   GOOD  SERVICES  351 

dine  with  a  party  to-day  of  the  late  Government  at  the 
Carlton.     Is  it  safe  ?     I  fear  not.' 


To   William  Pyne. 

BRAD EN HAM, 

Sept.  25,  1836. 

Your  letter  rather  alarms  me;  I  scarcely  think  it  safe 
to  remain  here  as  any  proceedings  of  the  kind  here  would  be 
confusion.  I  have  not  left  this  house  except  for  County 
business1  occasionally,  working  unceasingly  at  my  forthcoming 
book.  I  have  no  pecuniary  cares  for  the  next  three  months, 
and  I  wish  if  possible  to  reap  a  great  harvest  in  this  serene 
interval,  and  finish,  or  nearly  so,  a  second  novel  for  January, 
getting  the  forthcoming  one  out  in  the  very  early  part  of 
November. 

BBADENHAM, 

Sunday.    [November,  1836.] 

MY  DEAR  PYNE, 

The  letter  which  I  received  from  you  to-day  fills  me  with 
great  disquietude.  The  idea  that  I  am  involving  Count 
D'Orsay  and  yourself,  my  two  best  friends,  and  especially 
hampering  you,  is  so  insupportable,  that  there  seems  to  me 
hardly  any  explanations  and  crisis  which  I  would  not  encounter 
sooner  than  the  present  state  of  affairs.  My  situation  is 
simply  this.  I  have  taken  advantage  of  the  temporary  repose 
for  which  I  am  indebted  to  you  and  with  the  exception  of 
County  business  I  have  not  quitted  my  room  for  the  last  ten 
weeks.  I  have  now  written  five  octavo  volumes,  i.e.  the 
novel  about  to  be  published,  and  two  more  of  another,  which 
I  calculate  finishing  by  the  end  of  the  year.  If  affairs  can  be 
carried  on,  I  then  purpose  commencing  a  third,  but,  as  you  can 
easily  comprehend,  such  almost  superhuman  labors,  though 
practicable  with  a  serene  mind  and  unbroken  time,  are  impos- 
sible under  opposite  circumstances.  A  serene  mind  I  never 
expect  to  have,  but  hitherto  my  time  has  been  little  disturbed. 
If  the  results  are  what  my  publisher  anticipates,  and  I  am 
able  to  complete  this  engagement,  I  think  between  £3,000  and 
£4,000  might  be  poured  into  my  coffers  by  May :  but  the  ships, 
though  built  and  building,  are  not  yet  launched,  and  as  I  have 
some  difficulties  with  which  you  are  not  mixed  up,  still  to 
contend  with,  I  doubt  whether  on  our  present  system  I  can 
hope  effectively  to  assist  you  before  the  Spring.  Do  you 
think  the  present  system  can  be  maintained  ?  That  you  will 

1  He  had  been  sworn  in  as  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  in  the  preceding 
month. 


352  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA  [CHAP,  xv 

'  do  your  best '  I  want  no  assurance,  but  I  am  loth  to  strain 
a  generous  steed  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  such  great 
services.  I  am  always  afraid  that  a  feeling  of  false  delicacy 
may  prevent  you  being  as  frank  with  me  as  your  interests 
may  require,  and  that  you  may  imagine  that  you  are  in  some 
degree  cancelling  your  unparalleled  services  to  me,  by  remind- 
ing me  that  they  must  necessarily  have  a  limit.  This  never 
can  be  the  case,  and  I  hope,  therefore,  you  will  write  to  me 
your  wishes,  for  however  disagreeable  at  this  moment  may  be 
a  family  expos6,  I  should  prefer  it  infinitely  to  your  injury. 

Ever  yours, 

D. 


BRADENHAM, 

Dec.  5  [1836]. 

Our  county  Conservative  Dinner,  which  will  be  the  most 
important  assembly  of  the  kind  yet  held,  takes  place  on 
Friday  the  9th  inst.  I  have  been  requested  to  move  the 
principal  toast  'The  House  of  Lords.'  I  trust  there  is  no 
danger  of  my  being  nabbed,  as  this  would  be  a  fatal 
contretemps,  inasmuch  as,  in  all  probability,  I  am  addressing 
my  future  constituents. 

BRADENHAM, 

Dec.  26. 

This  is  really  Xmas.  I  arrived  just  in  time,  for  what 
with  the  fall  and  the  snow  drifting  from  the  hills,  our 
road  is  really  blocked  up,  in  some  parts  as  high  as  a 
man's  breast,  and  I  doubt  almost  whether  this  may  reach 
our  post,  which  is  two  miles  distant.  I  assure  you  when 
I  reached  the  old  hall,  and  found  the  beech  blocks  crackling 
and  blazing,  I  felt  no  common  sentiments  of  gratitude  to 
that  kind  friend  whose  never  tired  zeal  allowed  me  to  reach 
my  house,  and  is  some  consolation  for  the  plague  of  women, 
the  wear  and  tear  of  politics,  and  the  dunning  of  creditors. 
We  are  now,  however,  comparatively  in  still  waters,  thanks 
to  your  pilotage,  and  I  am  at  work  again  animated  by 
success  and  by  the  greatness  of  future  results. 

Sunday.    [Jan.  8,  1837.] 
MY   DEAR  PYNE, 

How  goes  on  the  damned  coin  ?     I  am  ashamed  to  bore 
you,  but  am  beset  with  as  great  duns  as  myself. 

I  am  in  good  health,  considering  I  have  never  left  my 
rooms,  and  have  been  in  worse  spirits.  But  the  quantity 


1836-37]  LETTERS   TO   PYNE  353 

I  have  written,  and  am  pouring  forth,  is  something  monstrous. 
I  find  it  a  relief,  and  now  that  I  have  nothing  else  to  distract 
my  thoughts,  I  am  resolved  to  ruin  Col  burn. 

I  suppose  I  shall  be  in  town  about  the  15th.  I  am  in  treaty 
for  Lord  Althorp's  rooms  in  the  Albany,  once  Byron's,  and 
now  Bulvver's ;  a  curious  coincidence  of  successive  scribblers ; 
the  spell  I  suppose  growing  weaker  every  degree,  and  the  in- 
spiration less  genuine ;  but  I  may  flare  up  yet,  and  surprise  you 
all.  I  find  they  won't  be  dearer  than  wretched  lodgings  and 
infinitely  cheaper  than  the  worst  hotel ;  and  then  I  shall  be 
lodged  in  a  way  that  suits  me ;  gloomy  and  spacious,  with 
room  to  stroll  and  smoke,  and  able  to  spout  occasionally  with- 
out being  overheard  by  any  damned  fellow  who  steals  all  your 
jokes  and  sublimities. 

I  am  on  the  whole  savagely  gay,  and  sincerely  glad  that  I 
am  freer  of  encumbrances,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  than  I 
was  this  time  last  year. 

Ever  thine, 

D. 


A  few  days  later  he  has  heard  that  the  well-known 
estate  of  Chequers  Court  is  to  be  sold  and  '  we  here 
wish  to  purchase.'  'I  should  suppose,'  he  adds  in  his 
usual  airy  way,  'not  under  ,£40,000,  perhaps  £10,000 
more,  as  there  is  timber;  but  at  any  rate  I  should  like 
to  leave  half  the  purchase  money  on  mortgage,  if 
practicable;  if  not,  we  must  manage  some  other  way.' 
4 Be  of  good  cheer,'  he  concludes,  'the  Spring  is  coming 
and  will  bring  us  all  good  fortune.  I  am  "  bobbish,"  as 
Horace  says,  or  someone  else,  and  my  fellow  is  putting 
on  my  spurs  preliminary  to  an  inspiring  canter  ' ;  and 
then  follows  a  cheerful  postscript,  '  I  enclose  the  blasted 
bills.' 

To  Lady  Blessington. 

BRADENHAM, 

Thursday.    [Jan.  12,  1837.] 
MY  DEAR  LADY, 

We  have  all  here  been  dying  of  an  epidemic;  Tita  and 
myself  being  the  only  persons  who  have  escaped.  I  trust  that 
it  has  not  reached  K[ensington]  G[ore].  All  this  district 
are  prostrate.  I  fear  for  you ;  D'Orsay  I  know  —  immortal 

VOL.  I  —  2  A 


354  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA  [CHAP,  xv 

youth — is  never  indisposed.  I  ascribe  my  exemption  to  a 
sort  of  low,  gentleman-like  fever  that  has  had  hold  of  me 
ever  since  I  came  down  here,  and  which  is  not  very  incon- 
venient. I  have  in  consequence  never  left  the  house,  scarcely 
my  room,  and  it  has  not  incapacitated  me  from  a  little  gentle 
scribbling.  I  am  about  something  in  a  higher  vein  than  the 
last ;  what  you  and  E.  L.  B.  would  call  '  worthy  of  me,'  alias 
unpopular. 

I  am  sorry  about  B's  play1;  I  would  not  write  to  him  as 
I  detest  sympathy  save  with  good  fortune;  but  I  am  sorry, 
very,  and  for  several  reasons :  1st,  because  he  is  my  friend ; 
2ndly,  because  he  is  the  only  literary  man  whom  I  do  not 
abominate  and  despise;  3rdly,  because  I  have  no  jealousy  on 
principle  (not  from  feeling)  since  I  think  always  the  more  the 
merrier,  and  his  success  would  probably  have  assisted  mine ; 
4thly,  because  it  proves  the  public  taste  lower  even  than  I 
imagined  it,  if  indeed  there  can  be  a  deeper  still  than  my 
estimate ;  Sthly,  because,  from  the  extracts  which  have  met 
my  eye,  the  play  seems  excellent,  and  far  the  best  poeshie  that 
he  has  yet  relieved  himself  of;  6thly,  because  there  seems 
to  have  been  a  vast  deal  of  disgusting  cant  upon  the  occasion ; 
Tthly,  because  he  is  a  good  fellow;  and  Sthly,  —  I  forget 
the  8th  argument,  but  it  was  a  very  strong  one.  However, 
the  actors  of  the  present  day  are  worse  even  than  the  authors ; 
that  I  knew  before,  but  E.  L.  B.  would  not  believe  it  and  I 
could  pardon  his  scepticism.  As  for  myself  I  have  locked 
up  my  m6lodrame  in  the  same  strong  box  with  ray  love 
letters;  both  lots  being  productions  only  interesting  to  the 
writer. 

I  have  received  several  letters  from  Ld.  L.,  who  has  sent 
me  H.  T.  from  Paris  price  4s.  &  2d. ;  an  agreeable  present 
proving  the  value  of  our  copyrights  to  London  publishers.  It 
is  a  vile  trade,  but  what  is  better  ?  Not  politics.  I  look  for- 
ward to  the  coming  campaign  with  unmitigated  disgust;  and 
should  certainly  sell  out,  only  one's  enemies  would  say  one 
had  failed,  to  say  nothing  of  one's  friends.  The  fact  is,  I  am 
too  much  committed  to  the  fray  to  retire  at  present  —  but  oh! 
that  I  had  the  wings  of  a  dove,  &c. 

Ld.  L.  will  be  with  us  in  a  week.  I  feel  interested  in  his 
career,  more  than  in  my  own ;  for  he  is  indeed  the  most 
amiable  of  men,  though  that  is  not  very  high  praise  you  will 
say.  Ah !  mtchante !  I  see  the  epigram  on  your  lips ! 

1  The  Lady  of  Lyons. 


1837]  LETTER   TO   LADY   BLESSINGTON  355 

I  really  grieve  if  I  said  anything  which  deserved  the  lecture x 
you  gave  me,  though  I  am  almost  glad  I  merited  it  if  only  for 
its  kindness.  I  was  rather  harassed  when  I  was  last  in  town 
as  you  know  and  have  a  disagreeable  habit  of  saying  every- 
thing I  feel ;  but  I  love  my  friends  and  am  not  naturally 
suspicious  or  on  the  alert  to  quarrel  about  straws.  I  am  here 
pretty  well  and  have  my  rooms  and  my  time  to  myself,  but 
still  there  is  a  family,  though  an  amiable  and  engaging  one ; 
and  the  more  I  feel,  the  more  I  am  convinced  that  man  is  not 
a  social  animal.  Remember  me  to  D'O.  and  E,  L.  B. ;  to 
nobody  else  and  believe  me 

Yours, 

Dis. 


By  the  middle  of  January  he  is  in  London,  the  guest 
of  D'Orsay  in  Kensington.  Lady  Blessington  had  left 
Seamore  Place  in  the  previous  year  and  moved  to  Gore 
House,  once  the  home  of  William  Wilberforce ;  and 
D'Orsay,  as  Disraeli  puts  it,  had  taken  '  an  elegant  resi- 
dence adjoining  her  magnificent  mansion.' 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Wednesday.    [Feb.,  1837.] 
MY   DEAREST, 

The  Whigs  and  Tories  watch  each  other  like  a  cat  and  a 
dog,  and  neither  will  make  the  first  move.  The  Duke  is 
for  the  tactics  of  last  Session,  and  I  think  under  the  circum- 
stances he  is  right ;  Melbourne  is  pledged  to  bring  the  Irish 
question  immediately  forward,  and  if  again  defeated,  as  is 
certain,  he  will  dissolve  or  resign.  This  is  exactly  the  state 
of  affairs.  But  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  when 
L.  wrote  to  me  from  Paris  that  M.  had  resigned,  &c.,  it  was 
true.  His  informant  was  Ellice,  and  I  have  since  learnt 
from  an  unquestionable  quarter  that  the  information  was 
authentic.  Through  the  whole  recess  there  has  scarcely 
been  a  single  Cabinet  Council,  in  consequence  of  the  dis- 
sensions in  the  Cabinet,  but  Melbourne  saw  bodies  of  the 
Ministers  at  his  own  office.  He  yielded  to  the  representations 
of  Lord  John  in  maintaining  his  post,  as  Lord  J.  is  of  opinion 
that  if  the  Whigs  go  out  of  office,  they  should  contrive  to  go 

1  '  Be  more  just  to  yourself  and  to  your  friends,  than  to  listen  to  those 
pests  of  society  who  desire  nothing  so  much  as  to  make  mischief  —  that 
is  the  pith  of  the  lecture. 


356  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND   VENETIA  [CHAP,  xv 

out  with  a  claptrap  and  not  quietly  resign  from  difficulties 
during  the  prorogation.  This  will  show  you  on  what  a  frail 
tenure  the  whole  hinges,  and  what  may  be  expected. 

I  am  very  well,  indeed,  but  with  the  exception  of  seeing 
L.  occasionally,  I  shall  devote  myself  to  the  fair  Venetia. 
I  write  well  here,  as  the  life  suits  me,  and  am  at  hand  if  wanted. 
As  we  dine  late  there  is  a  long  morning,  and  the  air  bath, 
which  is  wonderful,  renders  exercise  unnecessary,  and  does 
my  head  much  good.  It  certainly  baffled  the  influenza,  of 
which  poor  Lady  Combermere  has  died,  surviving  her  father, 
old  Greville,  but  a  few  days. 

When  D'Orsay  does  not  dine  out,  which  is  generally  every 
other  day,  there  is  usually  one  or  two  persons  at  dinner  here. 
On  Monday  Ossulston  dined  en  famille  here  and  gave  us  a 
very  agreeable  account  of  the  Gramouts,  whom  he  had  been 
visiting  at  Versailles.  The  Due  de  Gram  is  D'Orsay's 
brother-in-law  and  Oss's  uncle.  Since  the  glorious  days 
they  have  retired  from  Court  and  keep  themselves  aloof, 
the  Duke  devoting  himself  entirely  to  the  education  of  his 
three  sons.  The  first,  Agenor,  the  Due  de  Guiche,  is  quiet,  with 
great  talents,  and  at  fourteen  has  just  passed  the  examination 
of  the  &ole  poll/technique,  one  of  the  severest  in  the  world ; 
the  second,  Augustus,  the  Marquis  de  Gramont,  is  a  complete 
soldier ;  the  third,  Alfred,  the  Count  de  Gramont,  is  only 
eight  years  of  age,  but,  though  brought  up  in  so  domestic  and 
even  severe  a  style,  is  as  great  a  rout  as  his  illustrious  ancestor ; 
he  does  nothing  but  laugh,  shrug  his  shoulders  and  run  after 
the  maids,  who  complain  bitterly  of  his  rudeness.  .  .  . 

Miladi  here  writes  ten  hours  a  day;  and  makes  £2,000  per 
ann.  This  is  true,  for  she  showed  me  her  agreements.  Her 
novels  do  not  sell  very  much.  She  only  gets  £400  for  one; 
copyright  and  all.  But  she  has  a  guinea  a  line  for  her  poetry, 
of  which  she  is  very  proud,  and  receives  from  Heath  altogether 
£1,000  per  ann.  She  is  not  entirely  free  from  the  irritability 
of  genius,  but  what  can  be  expected  from  such  severe 
labor  ?  But  she  is  a  good-hearted  woman  and  a  warm  friend. 
I  could  tell  you  much  of  her  that  would  amuse  and  interest 
you.  She  allows  her  father  £200  a  year,  and  has  twice  paid 
his  debts,  and  has  three  or  four  nephews,  young  Powers,  at 
school,  and  at  very  expensive  ones,  who  are  no  favorites 
with  her  and  not  very  engaging,  but  she  acts  from  principle. 
One  is  here,  just  come  over  from  New  Brunswick,  where  his 
father  has  an  appointment.  This  lad  is  to  be  sent  out  to 
India,  a  cadet,  all  by  Lady  B.  Lady  Canterbury  will  do 
nothing,  and  turns  up  her  nose  at  old  days  of  which  her  sister 
is  not  ashamed. 

D. 


1837]  AN   ALARMING   INCIDENT  357 

If  Disraeli  escaped  the  influenza,  his  general  health, 
as  the  result  of  over-work  and  monetary  worries,  was 
by  no  means  robust.  Before  February  was  far  advanced 
the  death  of  one  of  the  members  for  Bucks  sent  him 
back  post  haste  to  Bradenham,  and  he  performed  prodi- 
gies of  exertion  for  the  Conservative  candidate  in  the 
bye-election  that  followed  ;  but  on  the  first  day  of  the 
polling  an  incident  occurred  that  greatly  alarmed  his 
friends.  After  canvassing  far  and  wide,  he  had  travelled 
all  through  the  night  to  Aylesbury,  and,  as  he  stood  in 
front  of  the  George  Inn  talking  to  his  friends,  he  fell 
in  a  fit,  which  the  doctors,  according  to  his  father,  ex- 
plained as  a  slight  attack  of  epilepsy,  but  which  was, 
perhaps,  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the  recording 
journalist 1  as  the  result  of  great  fatigue  and  excitement, 
acting  on  a  frame  already  enfeebled.  According  to  the 
practice  of  the  times,  the  patient  was  bled  and  put  to 
bed,  but  the  following  day  he  was  sufficiently  recovered 
to  be  taken  back  to  Bradenham.  This  incident  seems 
to  have  led  to  an  explanation  with  his  father  on  the 
state  of  his  affairs,  and  so  afforded  a  great  economist 
an  opportunity  for  lecturing  the  future  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  on  the  first  principles  of  finance. 

From  Count  D*  Or  say. 

Je  suis  bien  aise  pour  votre  inte're't  present  et  futur  que 
vous  vous  soyez  decide  a  avouer  a  votre  pere,  1'etendue  de 
votre  scrape.  Car  les  plasterings-over  se  de'molissent  tou- 
jours  et  vous  en  auriez  ete  victime  continuellement.  Votre 
imagination  vive  et  brillante,  vous  fait  bStir  des  chateaux 
en  Espagne.  Tout  cela  est  bel  et  bon  pour  les  Wonderful 
Tales  of  Alroy,  mais  pour  la  mate'rielle  vie  de  1'Angleterre  le 
positif  b§,t  1'imaginaire. 

In  spite  of  D'Orsay's  wise  exhortations,  Disraeli  seems 
to  have  given  only  a  half  confidence  to  his  father,  and 
the  two  months  that  followed  were  perhaps  the  most 
distracting  of  his  life. 

aln  The  Times  of  February  17,  1837. 


358  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND   VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

To   William  Pyne. 

Sunday.     [Feb.  19,  1837.] 
MY  DEAR  P., 

I  enclose  the  bill,  which  I  hope  will  be  all  right.  Your 
letter  is  gloomy,  but  yesterday  was  Spring  and  to-day  is 
Winter,  and  Tuesday  may  therefore  bring  sunshine,  both 
moral  and  physical. 

I  assure  you  the  trouble,  the  harass  and  anxiety,  which 
you  must  experience  in  all  this,  is  not  the  least  part  of  my 
afflictions  :  and,  indeed,  I  know  not  how  I  can  repay  you. 

I  have  only  150  pages,  or  less,  of  my  book  to  finish,  which 
I  ought  to  canter  through  in  the  remainder  of  the  month 
with  ease,  but  I  find  it  difficult  to  command  the  Muse  amid 
all  these  vexations.  The  form  of  Davis,  or  the  unknown 
visage  of  Green,  mixed  themselves  up,  by  some  damnable 
process,  with  the  radiant  countenance  of  my  heroine,  and 
though  visions  of  spunging  houses  might  have  been  in  keep- 
ing with  the  last  vol.  of  Henrietta  Temple,  they  do  not 
accord  quite  so  well  with  the  more  ethereal  scenes  of  the 
fair  Venetia.  Nevertheless,  I  have  contrived  to  write,  and  I 
hope  my  inspiration  has  not  been  much  diluted  by  their 
distractions,  but  I  am  a  little  nervous. 

I  long  to  be  in  town  for  many  reasons.  I  have  a  letter 
from  Ld.  L.  this  morning  from  Paris  where  he  has  been 
detained  by  the  dangerous  state  of  his  daughter,  now  happily 
ceased,  and  he  writes  to  me,  as  if  he  half  thought  he  should 
be  Lord  Chancellor  before  he  reached  Dover.  I  think  there 
is  something  in  the  wind. 

Vale! 

D. 

He  is  soon  in  town  again  and  again  with  D'Orsay  in 
Kensington  ;  but  early  in  March  he  is  back  at  Bradenham 
once  more,  still  in  quest  of  the  peace  which  ever  eludes 
him.  '  Of  all  things  in  the  world  preserve  me  from  a 
Sheriff's  officer  in  my  own  county,'  he  writes  to  Pyne 
immediately  on  his  arrival.  A  fortnight  later  the 
Sheriff's  officer  is  at  Wycombe,  and  he  fears  'it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  prevent  a  disgraceful  catastrophe.' 
'  Seged  King  of  Ethiopia  who  was  resolved  to  have  a 
day  of  happiness  was  not  more  unfortunate  than  I  have 
been  with  my  month  of  quiet.  The  blows  have  been 
rapid  and  violent.'  This  early  in  April ;  and  a  few 


1837]  MONETARY  WORRIES  359 

days  later  to  Austen,  '  Every  possible  claim  that  could 
be  made  upon  me  has  poured  in  during  the  last  two 
months.  ...  I  never  have  been  so  distressed.' 


To   William  Pyne. 

BRADENHAM, 

April  23,  1837. 

I  conclude  from  your  interview,  that  the  game  is  up,  and 
that  our  system  has  failed.  I  assure  you  that  the  only 
feelings  that  I  have  at  this  moment  are  regret  for  your 
unavailing  exertions,  which  I  feel  no  professional  remu- 
neration can  compensate,  and  gratitude  for  the  generous  zeal 
with  which  you  have  served  me  for  the  now  not  incon- 
siderable period  of  our  acquaintance,  and  of  which  I  believe 
few  men  were  capable,  and  certainly  no  other  lawyer.  I  am 
sure  that  your  kind  feelings  and  your  matchless  energy 
have  effected  all  that  was  possible,  and  that  you  have  been 
baffled  only  by  circumstances  which  could  not  be  foreseen, 
and  over  which  you  had  no  control. 

Eventually,  with  the  assistance  of  his  father,  some 
modus  vivendi  was  discovered;  but  he  shrank  from  re- 
vealing to  his  father,  who  was  'one  of  the  old  school,' 
the  full  complexity  of  a  situation  which  'he  has  long 
taught  me  to  look  upon  with  the  greatest  apprehension 
and  mortification' ;  and  the  arrangement  now  effected, 
though  it  procured  the  distracted  author  a  certain  breath- 
ing space,  was  uneasy  and  precarious  enough. 

Such  were  the  unpromising  conditions  under  which 
Venetia  was  conceived  and  written.  The  agreement 
with  Colburn  is  dated  December  20,  and  a  little  earlier, 
as  we  have  seen,  Disraeli  expected  to  have  the  novel 
finished  by  the  end  of  the  year  :  but  again  and  again 
in  those  disturbed  months  his  hopes  were  disappointed 
and  the  spring  was  far  advanced  before  his  task  was 
completed. 

To  Lady  Blessington. 

BRADENHAM, 

March  21.     [1837.] 

In  spite  of  every  obstacle  in  the  shape  of  harassed  feelings 
and  other  disagreeable  accidents  of  life,  I  have  not  forgotten 


360  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

the  fair  Venetia,  who  has  grown  under  my  paternal  care, 
and  as  much  in  grace,  I  hope,  as  in  stature,  or  rather 
dimensions.  She  is  truly  like  her  prototype 

'  The  child  of  love,  though  born  in  bitterness, 
And  nurtured  in  convulsion ' ; 1 

but  I  hope  she  will  prove  a  source  of  consolation  to  her 
parent,  and  also  to  her  godmother,  for  I  consider  you  to 
stand  in  that  relation  to  her.  I  do  not  think  that  you  will 
find  any  golden  hint  of  our  musing  strolls  has  been  thrown 
away  upon  me  ;  and  I  should  not  be  surprised  if,  in  six  weeks, 
she  may  ring  the  bell  at  your  hall  door,  and  request  admit- 
tance, where  I  know  she  will  find  at  least  one  sympa- 
thising friend.  .  .  . 

I  have,  of  course,  no  news  from  this  extreme  solitude. 
My  father  advances  valiantly  with  his  great  enterprise, 
but  works  of  that  calibre  are  hewn  out  of  the  granite  with 
slow  and  elaborate  strokes.  Mine  are  but  plaster-of-Paris 
casts,  or  rather  statues  of  snow  that  melt  as  soon  as  they  are 
fashioned.2 


The  novel  appeared  in  May,  its  full  title  being 
4  Venetia  or  the  Poet's  daughter,'  and  its  parentage  being 
assigned  to  'The  Author  of  Vivian  Grrey  and  Henrietta 
Temple,'  a  variant  on  the  previous  formula  that  may 
be  interpreted  as  Colburn's  tribute  to  the  success  of 
Henrietta.  There  is  a  dedication  to  Lyndhurst  in  which 
the  author  tells  him  that  '  In  happier  hours  when  I 
first  mentioned  to  you  the  idea  of  this  work,  it  was  my 
intention,  while  inscribing  it  with  your  name,  to  have 
entered  into  some  details  as  to  the  principles  which  had 
guided  me  in  its  composition,  and  the  feelings  with 
which  I  had  attempted  to  shadow  forth,  though  as  "  in 
a  glass  darkly,"  two  of  the  most  renowned  and  refined 
spirits  that  have  adorned  these  our  latter  days.'  This 
explanation,  which  might  have  been  so  illuminating, 
was  unluckily  never  given,  and  we  can  only  conjecture 
the  motives  that  prompted  Disraeli  at  this  time  to  turn 
to  the  two  'renowned  and  refined  spirits,'  Byron  and 

1  These  words  from  the  third  canto  of  Childe  Harold  appeared  on 
the  title  page. 

2  From  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison's  collection. 


1837]  PUBLICATION   OF   VENETIA  361 

Shelley,  in  his  quest  for  the  material  for  a  new  work  of 
fiction.  But  it  would  almost  appear  as  if  now  that 
he  had  become  a  good  Conservative  something  in  the 
depths  of  his  passionate  and  romantic  nature  revolted 
against  the  dominion  of  a  prosaic  political  creed  and  an 
uninspiring  leader  ;  so  that  he  felt  impelled  to  demon- 
strate that,  though  he  had  submitted  himself  to  the 
yoke  of  a  definite  political  allegiance,  his  thoughts 
were  not  therefore  to  be  bounded  by  the  Tarn  worth 
manifesto.  By  choosing  as  his  heroes  the  two  greatest 
revolutionary  figures  that  England  had  produced  he 
made  proclamation  in  no  uncertain  tones  that  as  an 
artist  at  all  events  he  was  determined  to  retain  his 
freedom  and  not  to  bow  down  before  the  idols  of  the 
Philistines.  As  one1  of  the  best  and  most  appreciative 
critics  of  the  book  has  said,  '  a  waft  of  liberty  flutters 
through  its  pages.' 

In  the  complete  absence  of  direct  political  motive  Vene- 
tia  resembles  Henrietta  Temple,  and  it  is  peculiar,  among 
Disraeli's  novels,  in  the  comparative  absence  also  of  re- 
flexions of  his  own  personality  or  drafts  from  his  own  per- 
sonal experience  ;  unless  indeed  we  are  to  see  in  Cadurcis, 
who  stands  in  the  book  for  Byron,  something  of  Disraeli 
himself.  The  idea  is  by  no  means  fanciful.  Disraeli 
had  grown  to  manhood,  as  we  have  seen,  in  an  atmosphere 
where  reverence  for  Byron  was  almost  a  religion,  and  to 
him,  even  more  than  to  most  of  the  aspiring  youth  of  the 
day,  Byron  had  been  an  inspiration  and  a  model.  Many 
also  as  are  the  obvious  differences  between  the  two 
men  they  had  a  certain  natural  affinity  of  character  and 
genius,  alike  in  their  strength  and  in  their  weakness. 
There  is  something  in  both  of  the  same  daemonic  force, 
the  same  devouring  ambition,  the  same  self-idolatry,  the 
same  disposition  to  coxcombry  and  affectation ;  and  in 
the  wayward  childhood  and  tempestuous  career  of 
Cadurcis  we  are  not  infrequently  reminded  of  Disraeli 

1  Dr.  Georg  Brandes  in  his  Study  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  p.  152. 


362  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND   VENETIA    [CHAP,  xr 

himself,  though  there  is  nothing  to  suggest  that  the 
resemblance  was  intended.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  author's 
sympathy,  latent  or  avowed,  it  can  hardly  be  maintained 
that  Byron's  personality  as  presented  in  Cadurcis  is 
really  attractive  ;  though  in  that  perhaps  the  picture  was 
only  true  to  life.  Far  more  pleasing  is  the  presentation 
of  Shelley  in  the  person  of  Marmion  Herbert.  Disraeli 
had  less  in  common  with  Shelley  than  with  Byron ;  but 
in  strange  combination  with  Byron's  ambitious  egoism 
he  had  also  something  of  Shelley's  power  of  seeing  visions 
of  the  future,  and  he  had  studied  Shelley's  poetry  as  closely 
as  he  had  studied  Byron's.  Meredith's  diary  gives  us  a 
glimpse  of  him,  during  their  enforced  stay  at  Falmouth 
on  the  way  to  the  East,  deep  in  the  Cenci,  and  he  had  pur- 
sued his  studies  later,  as  the  Revolutionary  Epick  shows. 
In  the  matter  of  personal  details  Tita 1  served  him  as  an 
authority  for  Shelley  as  well  as  for  Byron  ;  and  in  the  year 
in  which  Venetia  was  begun,  Disraeli,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, had  also  made  the  acquaintance  of  that  'strange 
character '  Trelawny,  the  friend  of  Byron  and  Shelley, 
who  in  company  with  Byron  had  burnt  Shelley's  body 
on  the  Tuscan  shore.  Whether  Tita  or  Trelawny  was 
the  source,  the  accuracy  of  the  personal  touches  is 
attested  by  high  authority.2  Herbert,  we  are  assured, 
'  is  drawn  in  conformity  with  the  most  orthodox  Shelleyan 
tradition  ' ;  the  picture  of  his  appearance  in  youth  is  the 
picture  also  of  Shelley's,  and  the  details  of  the  final 
catastrophe  are  in  strict  accordance  with  the  fact.  Even 
the  colloquy  between  Herbert  and  Cadurcis,  in  which 
Cadurcis  by  comparison  is  so  flippant  and  unsatisfying, 
is  derived  almost  word  for  word  as  regards  Herbert's 
portion  from  Shelley's  Discourse  on  the  Manners  of  the 
Ancients,  a  work  then  known  to  few.  In  one  respect, 
indeed,  the  portrait  is  hardly  faithful.  It  ignores  too 
much  perhaps  the  element  in  Shelley's  character  which 

1  See  Appendix  A. 

2  The  late  Dr.  Garnett  in  a  privately  printed  essay,  Lord  Beaconsfield 
and  Shelley. 


1837]  BYRON   AND   SHELLEY  363 

made  him  describe  himself  as  'sudden  and  swift  and 
proud '  ;  but  Herbert,  it  may  be  urged,  is  an  older  man 
than  Shelley,  and  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  mellow- 
ing effect  of  age.  At  the  time  Venetia  was  written  Shelley 
was  still  something  of  a  bugbear  to  the  narrow  and  self- 
sufficient  English  world  of  the  day ;  his  fame  as  a  poet 
had  not  yet  won  him  forgiveness  for  his  transgressions 
as  a  man,  and  still  less  for  the  crude  and  aggressive  opin- 
ions which  had  brought  him  into  such  violent  collision 
with  orthodoxy  as  established  in  Church  and  State.  To 
Disraeli's  credit  be  it  remembered  that  he  was  one  of  the 
first  who  had  the  courage  to  attempt  to  do  him  justice  or, 
in  defiance  of  popular  prejudice,  to  present  his  personality 
in  a  sympathetic  light. 

The  division  of  parts  between  the  two  poets  is  very 
curious  and  complex.  The  genius  and  personality  of 
Byron  are  assigned  to  Cadurcis  ;  but  the  external 
circumstances  of  Byron's  life  are  apportioned  almost 
equally  between  Cadurcis  and  Herbert.  To  Cadurcis  are 
given  the  wilful  childhood,  the  foolish  mother,  the  sudden 
poetic  success,  the  relations  to  Lady  Caroline  Lamb, 
who  appears  in  the  book  as  Lady  Monteagle,  and  the 
outburst  of  popular  hostility  which  closed  Byron's  career 
in  England  ;  but  his  unhappy  marriage  and  subsequent 
relations  to  his  wife  and  '  Ada,  sole  daughter  of  my  house 
and  heart,'  are  transferred  to  Herbert,  who  has  the  genius 
and  personality  of  Shelley.  Both  poets  are  involved 
in  a  common  end  —  the  end,  in  fact,  of  Shelley.  The  link 
between  the  two  in  life  is  Venetia,  herself  a  beautiful 
figure,  though,  as  befits  a  daughter  of  Shelley's,  almost  too 
ethereal.  Long  before  the  world  at  large  was  disposed 
to  be  just  to  Disraeli  either  as  a  novelist  or  as  a  man,  some 
forgotten  critic 1  noted  that  he  was  almost  the  first  writer 
4  who  resolutely  set  himself  to  picture  the  child  life ' 
and  accounted  this  to  his  credit  'as  proving  a  greater 

1  His  words  are  preserved  in  a  letter  of  Sarah  Disraeli's,  who 
was  ever  ready  to  seize  on  any  morsel  of  praise  bestowed  on  her 
beloved  brother. 


364  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND   VENETIA    [CHAP,  xv 

depth  of  character  and  more  freshness  of  feeling'  than 
were  commonly  attributed  to  him.  Of  this  phase  of  his 
art  we  saw  something  in  Contartni,  and  we  shall  see  more  in 
Coningsby ;  but  it  is  in  Venetia  that  we  find  it  in  its  perfect 
expression.  Disraeli  has  written  nothing  more  pleasing 
than  those  early  chapters,  in  which  the  child  Venetia  is 
growing  up  by  her  mother's  side,  in  happy  ignorance 
of  her  father,  and  with  the  strangely  contrasted  but 
ever  affectionate  Plantagenet  as  her  constant  companion  ; 
and  the  story  of  the  subsequent  awakening,  in  spite  of 
all  her  mother's  precautions,  of  love  and  admiration  for 
the  unknown  and  banished  father,  and  of  the  develop- 
ment of  these  sentiments  into  an  intense  and  overmaster- 
ing passion,  is  told  with  power  and  pathos.  Even  when 
Disraeli,  greatly  daring,  tries  to  write  verses  for  both 
Byron  and  Shelley,  he  is  happiest  when  his  subject  is  a 
father's  love  ;  for  nowhere  perhaps  has  he  come  nearer 
to  real  poetry  than  in  the  lines  written  by  Herbert  '  On 
the  night  our  daughter  was  born.' 

Of  the  secondary  characters  the  most  interesting 
and  attractive  are  George  Cadurcis,  the  cousin  of  the 
poet,  in  whom  is  well  exemplified  the  truth  of  a  maxim 
that  comes  strangely  from  Disraeli,  'Though  we  are 
most  of  us  the  creatures  of  affectation,  simplicity  has 
a  great  charm ' ;  and  the  good  Dr.  Masham,  in  whom 
we  have  a  first-rate  picture  of  the  'regular  orthodox 
divine  of  the  eighteenth  century '  — 

With  a  large  cauliflower  wig,  shovel  hat,  and  huge  knee- 
buckles,  barely  covered  by  his  top-boots;  learned,  jovial, 
humorous,  and  somewhat  courtly ;  truly  pious,  but  not 
enthusiastic;  not  forgetful  of  his  tithes,  but  generous  and 
charitable  when  they  were  once  paid;  never  neglecting  the 
sick,  yet  occasionally  following  a  fox;  a  fine  scholar,  an 
active  magistrate,  and  a  good  shot;  dreading  the  Pope, 
and  hating  the  Presbyterians.1 

'  I  fear,'  Disraeli  wrote  to  Pyne  on  the  eve  of  publication, 
*  my  book  bears  marks  of  the  turbulence  of  the  last  two 

i  Bk.  I.  ch.  4. 


1837]  HASTY    WORKMANSHIP  365 

months.'  Many  signs  of  hasty  and  imperfect  workman- 
ship there  are.  The  introduction  of  Herbert's  mistress  is 
a  serious  aesthetic  blunder.  Lady  Annabel  Herbert  in 
the  earlier  portion  of  the  book  is  a  stately  though  severe, 
if  not  awe-inspiring,  figure  ;  but  her  behaviour  towards 
the  end  is  hardly  consistent  with  her  character,  and  her 
reconciliation  with  Herbert  strikes  us  as  somewhat 
forced.  Probably  also  the  conditions  under  which  the 
book  was  written  supply  the  best  explanation  of  a  curious 
plagiarism  from  Macaulay  which  has  often  been  discussed. 
The  well-known  passage  in  the  essay  on  Moore's  Life 
of  Byron  beginning  '  We  know  no  spectacle  so  ridiculous 
as  the  British  public  in  one  of  its  periodical  fits  of 
morality '  is  appropriated  bodily  with  no  better  acknow- 
ledgment in  the  original  text  of  the  novel  than  the 
introductory  phrase,  '  It  has  been  well  observed  ' ;  though 
in  subsequent  editions  to  fence  in  the  borrowed  passage 
the  words  '  These  observations  of  a  celebrated  writer ' 
ar,e  introduced  into  the  sentence  with  which  the  narrative 
is  resumed. 

Venetia  had  not  the  popular  success  of  Henrietta 
Temple,  though  it  pleased  the  critics  more.  Even  the 
Athenceum  hailed  it  as  exhibiting  'much  less  of  affecta- 
tion and  disordered  ardour '  than  that  '  incoherent  love- 
story  '  ;  and  its  appearance  was  made  the  occasion  for 
an  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review l  which  was  written 
in  no  captious  spirit,  but  endeavoured,  though  not  spar- 
ing Disraeli's  faults,  to  do  justice  to  his  merits  as  a 
novelist.  The  reviewer,  however,  upbraided  him  severely 
for  '  intruding  into  the  domestic  life  of  a  poet  and  his 
relations  and  extracting  the  materials  of  fiction  out  of 
events  so  recent  and  so  melancholy '  ;  and  the  intro- 
duction of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  was  especially  con- 
demned both  then  and  later.  Though  Lady  Caroline 
Lamb  had  been  in  the  grave  many  years,  her  husband 
was  still  alive  and  —  a  fact  that  is  not  irrelevant  —  the 
Whig  Prime  Minister ;  but  it  may*  probably  have  been 

i  For  Oct.,  1837. 


366  HENRIETTA   TEMPLE   AND  VENETIA  [CHAP,  xv 

some  feeling  of  the  delicacy  of  the  experiment  that 
prompted  Disraeli  to  throw  the  whole  story  back  by 
nearly  a  generation.  If  the  story  was  to  be  told  at  all, 
it  has  been  told  with  admirable  tact ;  '  a  masterpiece  of 
tact '  is  the  judgment  of  an  eminent  critic *  on  the  novel 
as  a  whole. 

1  Dr.  Brandes. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PARLIAMENT  AT  LAST 
1837 

An  entry  in  the  Mutilated  Diary  resumes  the  narra- 
tive. 

Returned  to  London  on  the  first  of  May;  entered  much 
into  society  :  invited  by  Lord  Francis  Egerton *  personally 
to  a  magnificent  entertainment,  which  I  attended  —  Sir  J. 
Tyrrell,  Q.  Dick,  Lord  Walpole,  Exmouth,  Fector,  Grimston. 
Distinguished  myself  very  much  in  the  election  of  Burdett 
for  Westminster ;  the  success  mainly  attributable  to  myself  : 
proposed  and  organised  the  youth  of  the  Carlton,  including 
all  the  nobility,  fashion,  and  influence  of  our  party  to  canvass 

Lord  Forester  and   his   brother,  Codrington,  H.  Baring, 

Pigot,  Sir  H.  Campbell,  &c.,  &c. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

May,  1837. 

Town  is  quite  full,  and  the  only  thing  talked  of  is  the 
Westminster  election.  I  am  on  Burdett's  committee  and 
obliged  to  canvass.  My  district,  which  is  Bolton  Street, 
Clarges,  &c.,  is  all  right,  though,  curious  enough,  Leader2 
is  one  of  my  list. 

P.  is  the  most  wonderful  person  in  the  world.  He  lives 
in  one  of  the  most  expensive  houses  in  Portland  Place,  many 
servants  in  livery,  a  handsome  wife  ornately  dressed,  children 
in  fancy  dresses  tumbling  on  ottomans,  one  swearing  he  is 
a  Tory,  the  other  a  Radical,  &c.  An  Expenditure  not  under 
£5,000  per  annum,  and  no  one  is  the  least  aware  of  his 
means.  The  party  was  very  stupid.  A  few  Carlton  men, 
mixed  up  with  some  Marylebone  and  Bloomsbury  slip-slop; 
but  I  like  to  go  to  a  house  for  the  first  time. 

1  Second  son  of  the  first  Duke  of  Sutherland,  and  himself  subsequently 
first  Earl  of  Ellesmere. 

2  Burdett's  opponent. 

367 


368  PARLIAMENT   AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

I  suppose  the  King  has  really  rallied,  as  I  met  Tom  Young, 
who  affected  that  he  had  never  even  been  in  danger.  I  met 
Sir  J.  Hanmer,  the  youthful  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  and  his 
pretty  wife,  and  was  glad  to  make  his  acquaintance,  for  he 
is  full  of  talent  and  literature,  and  so  enthusiastic  an  ad- 
mirer of  mine  that  he  had  absolutely  read  the  Revolutionary 
Epick. 

The  party  at  Bridgewater  House  last  night  turned  out  to 
be  a  grand  concert,  and  the  best  assembly  that  has  been 
given  this  season.  There  were  about  one  thousand  persons, 
and  the  suite  of  apartments,  including  the  picture  gallery, 
all  thrown  open  and  illuminated,  and  I  enjoyed  myself 
excessively.1 

Among  Disraeli's  papers  there  is  an  account 2  of  Burdett 
which  is  interesting,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  there 
was  a  certain  analogy  between  Burdett's  political  vicis- 
situdes and  his  own  ;  both  of  them  having  been  Radicals 
and  Reformers,  while  Toryism  was  unregenerate  ;  both 
becoming  Tories  when  Toryism  had  recovered  its 
vitality. 

Sir  Francis  Burdett  was  a  very  high-bred  man,  very  tall, 
and  with  a  distinguished  countenance.  He  was  a  complete 
Norman.  As  an  orator,  in  his  best  days,  he  had  no  equal. 
It  was  all  grace  and  music;  never  was  a  more  commanding 
manner  or  a  finer  voice.  The  range  of  his  subjects  was 
limited,  referring  mainly  to  the  character  of  the  constitution ; 
the  rights  and  grievances  of  the  people,  &c.,  &c. :  but  of  these 
he  was  master.  His  declamation  was  fiery  and  thrilling,  but 
always  natural.  He  was  one  of  the  most  natural  speakers 
I  recollect;  never  betrayed  into  bombast,  either  in  matter 
or  manner.  He  had  considerable  power  of  sarcasm,  and 
his  hits  always  told.  His  quotations  were,  I  think,  gener- 
ally from  Shakespeare. 

In  politics  he  was  a  Jacobite.  He  was  sprung  from  a  Jacobite 
family,  and  entered  life  with  the  hereditary  opinions  of  his 
class.  He  was  against  the  Boromongers,  that  is  to  say,  the 
new  capitalist  classes  which  William  the  Third  and  the  House 
of  Hanover  had  introduced :  he  was  for  annual  Parliaments 
and  universal  suffrage,  as  Sir  William  Wyndham  and  Sir 

1  Letters,  p.  112.  -  Written  about  1863. 


1837]  SIR  FRANCIS   BURDETT  369 

John  Hinde  Cotton  had  been  before  him,  in  order  to  curb  and 
control  these  classes.  The  latter  (Sir  J.  Cotton)  also  was 
for  the  ballot.  It  so  happened,  that  the  French  Revolution 
was  coincident  with  Burdett's  appearance  in  public  life,  and 
so,  in  the  confusion  of  circumstances  it  turned  out  that  he 
was  looked  upon  as  a  Jacobin,  when  in  reality  he  was  a 
Jacobite.  The  English  public,  which  is  particularly  ignorant 
of  history,  joined  in  the  taunts  of  his  inconsistency  when, 
late  in  life,  the  Boromongers  having  been  got  rid  of,  Burdett 
turned  out  to  be  what  he  started,  a  high  aristocratic  English 
politician. 

He  was  extremely  vain,  but  not  offensively  so ;  his  high 
breeding  prevented  that:  and  under  all  circumstances,  he 
was  distinguished  by  simplicity.  I  think  he  was  the  greatest 
gentleman  I  ever  knew.  For  many  years  after  he  entered 
Parliament  he  rode  up  to  Westminster  from  his  seat  in  Wilt- 
shire on  horseback.  The  country,  especially  in  that  part  of 
England,  was  then  very  open,  and  abounded  in  downs  and 
commons.  In  one  of  his  best  speeches  in  Parliament  (then 
reformed  and  full  of  quiet  middle-class  people)  on  the  expenses 
of  elections,  he  greatly  denounced  them,  and  observed  that 
he  had  a  right  to  give  an  opinion  on  the  subject,  as  there  was 
a  period  in  his  life  when  Parliamentary  contests  had  reduced 
him  to  a  state  of  absolute  beggary.  There  was  a  murmur  of 
admiring  incredulity.  '  I  assure  you,  Sir,'  he  continued, 
'  I  am  indulging  in  no  exaggeration.  Honorable  gentlemen 
may  not  beleive  it,  but  I  can  assure  them  there  was  a  time 
when  Lady  Burdett  had  only  one  pair  of  horses  to  her  car- 
riage.' The  effect  of  this  remark  in  one  of  the  early  reformed 
Parliaments,  full  of  retired  tradesmen,  many  of  whom  had 
amassed  wealth,  but  had  never  plucked  up  courage  to  keep 
a  carriage,  may  be  conceived.  It  was  the  most  patrician 
definition  of  poverty  ever  made. 

He  was  very  good-natured,  especially  to  young  members, 
but  rather  absent  and  thoughtless  in  domestic  arrangements. 
He  would  say  to  me  (1838  and  so  on)  <  Will  you  take  your 
mutton  with  me  to-day  ?  We  are  quite  alone.  Come  in 
boots.  You  won't  be  wanted  for  an  hour.'  And  I  often 
went.  He  lived  in  St.  James's  Place.  His  dinners  were 
most  agreeable.  Lady.  Burdett,  a  clever  woman,  but  a  great 
invalid,  appeared  after  dinner :  and  there  were  several  agree- 
able daughters.  One  day  he  asked  me  to  take  mutton, 
and  so  on,  and,  when  I  arrived  in  frock,  I  was  ushered  into 
illumined  saloons,  full  of  grand  guests  in  full  tenuel 

VOL.  I  —  2B 


870  PARLIAMENT  AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

When  he  was  taunted  at  the  beginning  of  1837  (I  think) 
with  changing  his  opinions,  he  gallantly  resigned  the  seat  for 
Westminster,  and  declared  himself  at  the  same  time  a  candi- 
date for  the  vacancy.  It  was  a  crisis  in  the  Conservative 
cause,  and  it  was  generally  felt  on  both  sides  that  his  fate 
would  decide  the  future  course  of  politics.  The  Tories  worked 
hard.  The  Carlton  Club  mapped  the  City  into  districts  and 
divided  these  among  the  ardent  youth  of  the  party.  May  Fair 
fell  to  me  and  Sir  Robert  Pigot,  and  very  great  fun  we  had. 
There  was  one  street  in  our  district  entirely  filled  with  cooks, 
chiefly  foreigners.  Ten  years  afterwards,  writing  Tancred, 
I  availed  myself  of  the  experience  then  obtained,  and  it 
formed  my  first  chapter.  Burdett  won  his  election :  and  no 
one  ever  enjoyed  a  triumph  more.  Perhaps  he  found  the  con- 
test still  more  exciting.  He  was  '  at  home '  every  evening 
during  it,  in  his  dining  room,  and  all  might  come  who  cared. 
There  he  delivered  every  evening  one  of  his  constitutional 
harangues,  or  invectives,  against  O'Connell,  then  in  the  Lib- 
eral ascendant.  They  were  very  fiery  and  created  great  enthu- 
siasm when  he  denounced  the  manner  of  the  famous  agitator 
'half  bully,  and  half  blarney.'1 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

June  19, 1837. 

There  was  an  agreeable  party  at  Madame  Montalernbert's ; 
but  whether  la  Comtesse  had  taken  an  extra  glass  of  cham- 
pagne, or  what  might  be  the  cause,  she  lionised  me  so  dread- 
fully that  I  was  actually  forced  to  run  for  my  life.  She  even 
produced  Venetia  and  was  going  to  read  a  passage  out  loud, 
when  I  seized  my  hat  and  rushed  downstairs,  leaving  the 
graceful  society  of  Lady  Egerton,  much  to  my  vexation.  .  .  . 

I  have  just  seen  a  very  interesting  letter  from  Munster 
dated  11  last  night.  The  King  dies  like  an  old  lion.  He  said 
yesterday  to  his  physicians,  '  Only  let  me  live  through  this 
glorious  day  ! '  This  suggested  to  Munster  to  bring  the  tri- 
color flag  which  had  just  arrived  from  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, and  show  it  to  the  King.  William  IV.  said,  'Right, 
right,'  and  afterwards,  '  Unfurl  it  and  let  me  feel  it,'  then  he 
pressed  the  eagle  and  said,  '  Glorious  day.'  This  may  be  de- 
pended on.  He  still  lives. 

D.2 

1  Burdett  reappears,  with  many  of  the  features  of  this  sketch  repro- 
duced, as  Sir  Fraunceys  Scrope  in  JSndymion,  ch.  76. 

2  Letters,  p.  113. 


1837]  ACCESSION   OF   QUEEN   VICTORIA  371 

The  King  died  in  the  course  of  the  night,  and  Queen 
Victoria  began  that  long  reign  in  which  Disraeli  himself 
was  to  be  so  conspicuous  a  figure.  By  eleven  o'clock 
the  following  morning  her  first  council  was  assembled. 

I  accompanied  Lord  Lyndhurst  to  Kensington  Palace,  when, 
on  the  accession  of  the  Queen,  the  peers  and  privy  council- 
lors and  chief  personages  of  the  realm  pledged  their  fealty 
to  their  new  Sovereign.  He  was  greatly  affected  by  the  un- 
usual scene :  a  youthful  maiden  receiving  the  homage  of  her 
subjects,  most  of  them  illustrious,  in  a  palace  in  a  garden,  and 
all  with  a  sweet  and  natural  dignity.  He  gave  me,  as  we 
drove  home,  an  animated  picture  of  what  had  occurred  in  the 
presence  chamber,  marked  by  all  that  penetrating  observation, 
and  happy  terseness  of  description,  which  distinguished  him. 
Eight  years  afterwards,  with  my  memory  still  under  the  in- 
fluence of  his  effective  narrative,  I  reproduced  the  scene  in 
Sybil,  and  I  feel  sure  it  may  be  referred  to  for  its  historical 
accuracy.1 

Throughout  the  session  the  Whig  Government  had 
been  tottering  to  its  fall,  but  a  political  struggle  was  now 
precipitated,  as  in  those  days  the  death  of  the  Sovereign 
rendered  a  dissolution  necessary. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

CABLTON  CLUB,. 

[June  20.] 

DEAREST, 

I  write  in  the  midst  of  three  or  four  hundred  persons  and 
in  a  scene  of  great  excitement. 

The  battle  now  approaches ;  what  will  be  my  fate  I  pretend 
not  to  foresee.  They  tell  me  Ashburton  is  safe  and  it  has 
been  offered  me,  but  I  have  refused  it,  as  I  should  have  had 
to  leave  town  to-night.  I  suppose  in  the  course  of  two  or 
three  days  I  shall  be  able  to  speak  more  definitely. 

Lord  Lyndhurst  attended  the  Privy  Council  at  Kensington 
and  kissed  the  young  Queen's  hand,  which  all  agreed  was 
remarkably  sweet  and  soft.  She  read  her  address  well  and 
was  perfectly  composed  though  alone  in  the  council  chamber 
and  attended  by  no  women. 

i  General  Preface  to  the  Novels,  1870. 


372  PARLIAMENT   AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

As  yet  there  are  not  even  rumours ;  all  is  tumult  and  like 
a  camp. 

Ever,  D. 

In  a  speech  in  the  course  of  the  election  campaign  which 
followed,  Disraeli  declared  that  no  one  probably  during 
the  few  preceding  months  had  received  more  requisitions 
to  become  a  candidate  for  Parliament  than  himself.  Not 
only  was  Ashburton  offered,  but  proposals  came  from 
Derby,  Chichester,  and  Dartmouth,  and  also  from  his 
former  friends  in  Marylebone  and  Taunton.  It  was  all 
but  arranged  that  he  should  stand  for  Barnstaple;  but 
eventually  an  opening  presented  itself  that  proved  more 
attractive  than  any  of  the  others.  The  borough  of  Maid- 
stone,  then  with  two  members,  had  been  represented  in 
the  expiring  Parliament  by  a  Conservative  and  a  Liberal, 
the  Conservative  being  Wyndham  Lewis,  husband  of 
the  '  pretty  little  flirt  and  rattle  '  whom  Disraeli  had  met 
at  Bulwer's  five  years  before.  It  was  at  first  the  inten- 
tion of  the  local  Conservatives  to  nominate  Lewis  only, 
but  when  they  had  completed  the  first  day's  canvass 
they  found  their  position  so  much  stronger  than  they 
had  supposed  that  they  despatched  a  deputation  to  the 
Carlton  Club  in  quest  of  a  second  candidate,  and  the 
choice  fell  upon  Disraeli. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

Friday.    [June  30.] 

The  clouds  have  at  length  dispelled,  and  my  prospects  seem 
as  bright  as  the  day.  At  six  o'clock  this  evening  I  start  for 
Maidstone  with  Wyndham  Lewis,  and  I  suppose  by  Wednes- 
day I  shall  have  completed  my  canvass.  I  doubt  whether 
there  will  be  a  contest.1 

His  address  to  the  electors  of  Maidstone  is  worth  pre- 
serving as  a  model  of  vigour  in  thought  and  terseness  in 
expression. 

I  solicit  your  suffrages  as  an  uncompromising  adherent  of 
1  Letters,  p.  114. 


1837]  CANDIDATE   FOR  MAIDSTONE  373 

that  ancient  constitution  which  once  was  the  boast  of  our 
fathers,  and  is  still  the  blessing  of  their  children.  I  wish  to 
see  the  Crown  enjoy  its  prerogative,  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment their  equal  privileges,  and  the  great  body  of  the  nation 
that  unrivalled  and  hereditary  freedom  which  has  been  the 
noble  consequence  of  our  finely-balanced  scheme  of  legislative 
power.  Convinced  that  the  reformed  religion  as  by  law 
established  in  this  country  is,  at  the  same  time,  the  best 
guarantee  for  religious  toleration  and  orthodox  purity,  I  feel 
it  my  duty  to  uphold  the  rights  of  our  national  Church,  that 
illustrious  institution  to  which  we  are  not  less  indebted  for 
our  civil  than  for  our  spiritual  liberties.  Resident  in  an 
agricultural  county,  and  deeply  interested  in  the  land,  I  will 
on  all  occasions  watch  with  vigilant  solicitude  over  the  fortunes 
of  the  British  farmer,  because  I  sincerely  believe  that  his 
welfare  is  the  surest  and  most  permanent  basis  of  general 
prosperity. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

MAIDSTONE, 

Tuesday.     [July  4.] 

Last  night  there  was  a  full  meeting,  and  I  think  I  made  the 
best  speech  I  ever  made  yet  —  as  well  maintained  as  the 
Aylesbury  one,  and  more  than  an  hour  in  length;  so  to-day 
I  canvassed  on  my  own  influence.  I  do  not  see  how  we  can 
be  defeated,  but  I  have  said  little  about  the  affair  generally, 
as  when  one  feels  assured  it  is  best  to  be  quiet.1 

Of  the  speech  on  this  occasion  Wyndhara  Lewis  wrote 
to  his  wife,  '  Disraeli  was  on  his  legs  more  than  an  hour  : 
he  is  a  splendid  orator  and  astonished  the  people.'  In 
the  matter  of  political  doctrine  the  speech  followed 
the  lines  that  have  become  so  familiar  to  us,  and  with 
the  exception  of  an  impassioned  attack  on  that 
'flagitious  statute,'  the  new  Poor  Law,  there  is  nothing 
in  it  now  that  calls  for  attention.  The  new  Poor  Law 
had  been  passed  by  the  Whigs  in  1834  with  the  full 
approval  of  Peel  and  Wellington,  but  though  it  corrected 
flagrant  abuses,  its  harshness  made  it  unpopular,  and 
the  cruelties  that  attended  its  enforcement  had  for 
some  time  been  denounced  daily  in  the  columns  of  The 

1  Letters,  p.  115. 


374  PARLIAMENT   AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvr 

Times  and  by  John  Walter,  the  chief  proprietor  of  TJie 
Times,  from  his  place  in  the  House  of  Commons. 


It  is  not  to  elicit  an  electioneering  cheer  [said  Disraeli], 
it  is  not  to  gain  a  single  vote  that  I  tell  you  I  have  long  since 
registered  myself  among  the  sternest  opponents  of  that 
measure.  I  can  appeal  to  a  career  which,  though  private, 
is  not  altogether  obscure,  in  proof  of  my  sincerity  and 
consistency.  I  have  the  proud  consolation  to  know  that, 
with  the  exception  of  the  honorable  member  for  Berkshire 
[John  Walter],  I  was  the  first  county  magistrate  who  raised 
his  voice  against  that  odious  Bill.  I  had  the  honor  of 
calling  the  first  meeting  in  my  own  county  against  it,  and 
it  was  this  right  hand  inscribed  one  of  the  first  petitions  to 
both  Houses  of  Parliament.  I  hope,  therefore,  my  sincerity 
cannot  for  a  moment  be  doubted.  That  Bill  bears  fearful 
tidings  for  the  poor.  Its  primary  object  is  founded  not 
only  on  a  political  blunder,  but  a  moral  error  —  it  went 
on  the  principle  that  relief  to  the  poor  is  a  charity.  I 
maintain  that  it  is  a  right  I  ...  I  would  not  have 
the  poor  man  deprived  of  the  small  consolation  of  witnessing 
the  games  of  his  grandchildren  —  I  would  not  deny  him  the 
mournful  satisfaction  of  viewing  the  tombs  of  his  fore- 
fathers. One  of  our  poets  has  beautifully  said — '  Sweet 
is  the  music  of  the  Sabbath  bells,'  but  of  this  music  the  Whigs 
have  deprived  the  poor  and  the  aged.  For  him  the  Sabbath 
bells  sound  no  more.  Immured  in  a  prison,  no  spiritual  con- 
solation can  he  derive  in  the  hallowed  temple  of  his  ancestors ; 
but,  at  length,  broken-hearted,  he  quits  a  world  with  which 
he  is  disgusted.  To  sum  up  my  feelings  in  a  sentence  —  I 
consider  that  this  Act  has  disgraced  the  country  more  than 
any  other  upon  record.  Both  a  moral  crime  and  a  political 
blunder,  it  announces  to  the  world  that  in  England  poverty 
is  a  crime. 


'  I  was  glad,'  he  remarks  to  Pyne  in  praying  him  to 
guard  against  the  descent  of  writs  during  the  election, 
'to  find  the  Sheriffs  officer  here  among  my  staunch 
supporters  :  I  suppose  gratitude.'  He  was  sanguine 
from  the  first,  and  when  the  Liberal  candidate,  Wyndham 
Lewis's  colleague  in  the  late  Parliament,  retired  from 
the  contest  it  looked  for  a  moment  as  if  he  would  be 
returned  unopposed. 


1837]  ELECTED   FOR  MAIDSTONE  375 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

July  22. 

The  accounts  from  Maidstone  continue  as  favorable  as 
ever.  Several  of  Robarts'  supporters  have  come  over  to  me 
since  his  secession.  I  believe  I  am  the  only  new  candidate 
of  our  side  who  has  not  an  opposition.  ...  So  much  for 
the  '  maddest  of  all  mad  acts,'  my  uncle  G.'s l  prescience, 
and  B.E.L.'s  unrivalled  powers  of  encouragement !  The 
nomination  day  is  fixed  for  the  25th.2 

On  the  25th,  however,  Colonel  Perronet  Thompson, 
editor  of  the  Westminster  Review,  and  a  well-known 
figure  among  the  Radicals  of  the  day,  more  adventurous 
than  Robarts,  allowed  himself  to  be  nominated.  'I 
hope,'  said  his  proposer  when  he  found  occasion  to 
mention  Disraeli,  'that  I  pronounce  his  name  aright.' 
'Colonel  Perronet  Thompson,'  retorted  Disraeli  in  the 
opening  sentences  of  his  speech,  '  I  hope,  as  Mr.  Ellis 
said,  that  I  pronounce  his  name  aright.'  Disraeli's 
ready  wit  and  eloquence  had  made  him  a  favourite  with 
his  side,  though,  as  his  popularity  grew,  the  animosity 
of  his  opponents  increased  in  like  proportion.  On  this 
occasion  a  hostile  paper  tell  us,  '  the  Blues  opened  the 
floodgates  of  their  recriminating  eloquence  on  the 
degraded  Disraeli,  who  winced  beneath  the  cries  of 
"  Old  clothes  !  "  "  Shylock  !  "  and  various  other  com- 
plimentary epithets  for  nearly  an  hour.'  Such  are  the 
amenities  of  electioneering. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

MAIDSTONK, 

July  27,  1837.    11  o'clock. 

DEAREST, 

Lewis  707 

Disraeli          616 

Colonel  Thompson 412 

The  constituency  nearly  exhausted. 

In  haste,  DIZZY.' 

1  George   Basevi,   a  brother  of    Disraeli's    mother.      Another    Miss 
Basevi,    their  sister,   had  married  a  Mr  Lindo,    and   'B.E.L.'  was  her 
son,  and  therefore  Disraeli's  cousin. 

2  Letters,   p.   115.     It  is  about  this  time  that  the  familiar  appellation 
which  is  here  used  as  signature,  and  which  was  subsequently  to  become 
so  famous,  begins  to  make  its  appearance. 


376  PARLIAMENT  AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

When  the  final  figures  were  declared  they  were  not  far 
different  :  he  had  reached  the  goal  at  last. 

Mrs.    Wyndham  Lewis  to  Major    Viney  Evans.1 

July  29,  1837. 

Mark  what  I  say  —  mark  what  I  prophesy :  Mr.  Disraeli 
will  in  a  very  few  years  be  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  day. 
His  great  talents,  backed  by  his  friends  Lord  Lyndhurst 
and  Lord  Chandos,  with  Wyndham's  power  to  keep  him  in 
Parliament,  will  insure  his  success.  They  call  him  my 
Parliamentary  protege. 


To  Mrs.  Wyndham  Lewis. 

BRADENHAM, SUNDAY. 

[July  30,  1837.] 

MY  DEAE  MBS.  WTNDHAM, 

You  may  conceive  my  astonishment  yesterday  on  entering 
the  County  of  Bucks  to  find  the  walls  of  every  town  plastered 
over  with  pink  (my  colour  at  Wycombe)  placards  '  Maidstone 
Election ;  State  of  the  Poll ;  Lewis  and  Disraeli ! '  &c.,  &c. 
It  was  curious  to  meet  our  united  names  thus  unexpectedly, 
and  as  I  had  been  dozing  in  the  postchaise,  I  really  thought, 
on  waking,  that  I  had  been  dreaming  all  the  while  of  home 
and  Buckinghamshire,  and  that  I  was  still  by  the  waters 
of  the  Medway  and  among  the  men  of  Kent.  All  doubt, 
however,  was  dispelled  on  my  arrival  at  Wycombe,  where 
I  found  that  on  the  previous  day  there  had  been  a  great 
festival  spontaneously  and  suddenly  celebrated  by  my 
neighbours  in  honour  of  our  victory.  Friday  was  market 
day  at  Wycombe,  which  is  the  greatest  corn  market  in 
England,  and  the  news  arrived  there  about  noon.  Imme- 
diately all  the  bells  were  set  a-ringing,  a  subscription  made 
at  the  market  tables  to  illuminate  the  town  in  the  evening, 
and  the  band  called  out,  parading  long  after  midnight.  At 
Aylesbury,  twelve  miles  further  on,  the  news  was  known 
earlier,  and  was  announced  from  the  hustings  by  Lord  Chandos, 
whereupon  the  multitude  gave  three  times  three  for  Lewis 
and  Disraeli,  and  cards  were  printed  by  Praed's  committee, 
circulating  the  intelligence.  I  thought  all  this  would  amuse 
you,  and  indeed  I  was  rather  gratified  by  finding  that  those 
among  whom  I  lived,  and  who,  after  all,  in  this  world,  must 
know  me  best,  felt  such  genuine  satisfaction  in  my  success. 

1  Her  brother. 


1837]  MRS.  WYNDHAM  LEWIS  377 

We  all  here  wish  very  much  that  Mr.  Wyndham  and 
yourself  would  come  and  pay  us  a  visit  among  our  beechen 
groves.  We  have  nothing  to  offer  you  but  simple  pleasures, 
a  sylvan  scene  and  an  affectionate  hearth.  I  hope  to  get  to 
town  on  Tuesday  evening  after  polling.  I  am  rather  nervous 
about  our  county  election;  our  third  man  lost  the  show  of 
hands  on  Saturday,  which  they  are  pleased  to  say  would  not 
have  occurred  had  I  spoken.  I  suppose  my  colleague  is  in 
Glamorganshire.  My  kind  regards  are  his  and  yours. 

Dis. 

To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

[Aug.  6.] 

DEAREST, 

The  Government  talks  of  breaking  up !  Lord  Melbourne 
really  said  that  he  could  not  carry  on  the  thing  with  '  Irish 
boroughs  against  English  counties.'  The  Whigs  now  confess 
that  they  are  beaten  to  pieces.  .  .  . 

I  dined  with  Munster,  Strangford,  Shaftesbury,  Exmouth, 
and  Loftus  at  the  Carlton  the  day  that  Hume  was  thrown 
out.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  little  Queen  clapped  her  hands 
when  she  was  told  that  Hume  was  out.  Yesterday  I  dined  at 
the  W.  L.'s.  The  Clarendons,  Prince  and  Princess  Poniatowski, 
Mrs.  C.  Gore,  Lady  Floyd ;  Mrs.  Dawson,  Parnther,  Beauclerk, 
and  myself ;  a  fine  dinner  well  cooked  and  gorgeous  service ; 
very  friendly,  more  friendly  every  day  ;  certainly  W.  L.  is 
one  of  the  oddest  men  that  ever  lived,  but  I  like  him  very 
much. 

What  do  you  think  of  Lyndhurst's  marriage  ?  I  had  long 
heard,  but  never  credited  it.  ...  I  am  very  well  and 
begin  to  enjoy  my  new  career.  I  find  that  it  makes  a 
sensible  difference  in  the  opinion  of  one's  friends ;  I  can 
scarcely  keep  my  countenance. 

I  received  my  father's  letter,  for  which  I  send  my  love,  and 
to  all. 

Dis.1 

[Aug.  12.] 
DEAREST, 

I  did  not  see  the  Herald  * ;  but  I  find  my  advent  canvassed 
in  many  papers ;  among  them  the  Spectator,  who  puts  Holmes, 

1  British  Museum.     Addit.  MSS. 

2  His  sister  had  written  :  —  'A  few  days  back  the  Morning  Herald  said 
something  of  two  men  being  returned  to  this  Parliament  of  whom  great 
things  were  expected.    Who  is  the  second  ? ' 


378  PARLIAMENT  AT  LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

Sugden,  and  myself  as  men  whom  the  Whigs  would  anxiously 
have  kept  out ;  but  says  they  have  no  doubt  I  fancy  I  shall 
be  the  terror  of  the  Treasury  bench,  but  they  shall  be 
'  agreeably  disappointed  if  I  turn  out  anything  better  than  a 
buffoon.'  This  must  come  from  Col.  Thompson  &  Co.,  who 
did  not  particularly  relish  my  nomination  jokes.  Clear  your 
head  of  all  nonsense  about  scrutinies,  petitions,  &c.,  &c.  There 
is  not  a  safer  seat  in  England  than  mine.  They  have  not  a 
shadow  to  work  upon.  .  .  . 

I  franked  your  letter.     .     .     . 

From  the  prospects  of  the  undecided  elections  there  is  no 
doubt  there  must  be  318  Tories  in  the  House  .  .  .  and 
I  shall  be  rather  surprised  if  we  don't  pick  up  a  few  more. 
In  short,  the  Government  is  done,  and  I  doubt  whether  they 
will  meet  Parliament.  .  .  .  The  Whigs  are  more  than 
low-spirited ;  they  are  in  extremis ;  they  give  the  affair  up. 
Peel  says  he  can  carry  on  the  Government  with  the  present 
Parliament,  not  the  slightest  doubt,  so  I  hope  we  are  sitting 
for  seven  years.  What  fun !  And  how  lucky  after  all  I  should 
esteem  myself ! 

My  love  to  all, 

D. 

To  Mrs.  Bulwer  Lytton. 

[Undated.] 

It  was  odd  that  my  electioneering  struggle  should  terminate 
in  being  M.P.  for  Maidstone.  As  I  am  already  a  believer  in 
destiny,  ,it  required  not  this  strange  occurrence,  and  doubly 
strange  from  the  manner  in  which  it  took  place,  to  confirm 
me  in  my  Oriental  creed.  .  .  .  We  are  the  children  of 
the  gods,  and  are  never  more  the  slaves  of  circumstances  than 
when  we  deem  ourselves  their  masters.  What  may  next 
happen  in  the  dazzling  farce  of  life  the  Fates  only  know.1 

To  Mrs.  Wyndham  Lewis. 

BKADKNHAM, 

Sept.  1, 1837. 

After  you  went,  everything  and  everybody  were  most 
dull  and  triste.  The  truth  is  the  visit  was  too  short.  Yesterday 
I  '  executed  justice  and  maintained  truth '  at  West  Wycombe, 
where  they  kept  me  so  late  that  I  missed  the  post.  Here 
everything  remains  the  same,  save  that  it  is  now  the 
memorable  first  of  September  and  the  boys  are  out  shooting. 

1  From  a  letter  in  Mr.  Alfred  Morrison's  collection. 


1837]  AT   BRADENHAM  379 

They  went  out  at  six  this  morning  and  have  not  yet  made 
their  reappearance. 

We  must  ask  you  for  news  :  you  cannot  expect  it  from 
this  sylvan  solitude.  Not  an  incident  ever  occurs  here ; 
one  day  is  as  like  another  as  fruit  on  a  tree.  The  weather 
has  been  more  favorable,  which  made  us  all  still  more  deplore 
the  absence  of  our  recent  guests. 

All  unite  here  in  love  and  affection  and  compliments  to 
you  and  Wyndham :  I  send  my  quota. 

Dis. 

Mrs.   Wyndham  Lewis  to  Major  Evans. 

Sept.  8,  1837. 

I  have  been  paying  a  visit  to  Mr.  Disraeli's  family.  They 
reside  near  High  Wycombe  —  a  large  family  house,  most  of  the 
rooms  30  and  40  feet  long,  and  plenty  of  servants,  horses, 
dogs,  and  a  library  full  of  the  rarest  books.  But  how  shall 
I  describe  his  father ;  the  most  lovable,  perfect  old  gentleman 
I  ever  met  with  ?  A  sort  of  modern  Dominie  Sampson  — 
and  his  manners  are  so  high-bred  and  natural.  Miss  Disraeli 
is  handsome  and  talented,  and  two  brothers.  Our  political 
pet,  the  eldest,  commonly  called  Dizzy,  you  will  see  a  great 
deal  of ;  you  know  Wyndham  brought  him  in  for  Maidstone 
with  himself. 


To  Sarah  Disraeli. 

WOOLBKDDfa, 

[Oct.  24  (?),  1837.] 
MY  DEAREST, 

I  arrived  here  yesterday  at  3  o'clock,  having  travelled 
through  a  fine  country,  Esher,  Guildford,  Godalming,  until 
leaving  at  that  point  the  high  road,  I  entered  a  region  of 
picturesque  and  sylvan  beauty  I  have  never  seen  equalled, 
in  the  midst  of  which,  after  a  hilly  drive  of  20  miles,  I  found 
Woolbeding  on  the  banks  of  the  Bother.  This  is  a  house 
rather  old-fashioned  than  antiquated,  but  very  convenient 
and  compact,  covered  with  ivy,  with  the  Church  joining  it  in 
the  same  green  garb,  and  a  very  fine  conservatory.  The 
grounds  and  gardens  are  as  remarkable  for  their  beautiful 
forms  and  rich  shrubs  as  you  can  conceive,  with  the  river 
winding  all  about.  The  place  belongs  to  Lord  Kobert 
Spencer's  heirs,  who  are  doubtful,  and  is  only  used  by  Maxse l 

1  Mr.  James  Maxse,  his  host.     Lady  Caroline  Maxse,  his  hostess,  was 
a  daughter  of  the  fifth  Earl  of  Berkeley. 


380  PARLIAMENT   AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

as  a  shooting  box.     His  principal  residence  is  in  the  West  of 
England  and  he  only  lives  here  in  the  sporting  season.     .    .    . 

It  rains  to-day  without  ceasing.  Here  are  at  present 
nothing  but  shooting  dandies  ;  Lord  Rokeby,  Henry  Berkeley, 
and  Whyte  Melville.  .  .  .  We  dine  at  half  past  six  and 
there  is  a  constant  breakfast  —  the  only  rule,  as  Maxse  says, 
being  that  it  is  expected  that  his  guests  will  endeavour  to 
breakfast  before  he  dines:  there  is  no  end  of  horses,  guns, 
and  dogs  and  a  very  large  company  of  London  servants.  All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  give  your  orders  without  delicacy.  Lady 
Caroline  is  amiable,  and  has  four  beautiful  and  interesting 
children,  to  whom  she  is  devoted. 

I  see  by  the  Globe  of  last  night  that  the  forthcoming 
Edinburgh  has  an  article  on  '  Disraeli's  Novels '  —  I  suppose  to 
assist  my  parliamentary  debut.  Very  kind  of  the  Whigs. 
I  am,  however,  perfectly  callous.  .  .  . 

I  will  write  when  there  is  matter  for  a  letter ;  but  if  it  rains 
I  doubt  whether  there  will  be.  At  any  rate  I  shall  not  stay 
here  longer  than  I  can  help.  In  the  course  of  my  travelling 
down  I  passed  many  famous  places,  Ockham  (Lord  King's), 
Loseley  House,  and  Sutton  Place,  but  the  latter  was  so 
embosomed  in  trees  I  could  not  distinguish  it :  all  this  on  the 
high  road. 

Your  affectionate, 

D.1 


WOOLBKDING, 

[Oct.  26(?).] 
MY  DEAREST, 

•  •  •  *  • 

Yesterday  Lady  Caroline  drove  me  to  Cowdray,  Mr. 
Poyntz's,  in  one  of  the  most  brilliant  equipages  I  ever  wit- 
nessed. Her  poneys,  for  such  they  are  styled  though  they 
are  15  hands  high,  are  thoroughbred,  and  worthy  of  George 
the  Fourth,  as  well  as  her  carriage,  which  is  of  cane  on  a 
frame  of  a  peculiarly  brilliant  and  rich  green ;  she  has  two 
outriders,  and  the  moment  there  is  the  slightest  elevation  the 
poneys  break  into  a  gallop  of  their  own  accord  to  the  fear  and 
astonishment  of  all  passengers.  She  is,  however,  a  good  whip 

and  knows  her  cattle  and  country 

Cowdray  is  one  of  the  most  magnificent  demesnes  in 
England.  Poyntz  has  about  25,000  acres.  The  old  Tudor 
Hall  which  you  approach  from  Midhurst  by  an  avenue  was 
burnt  down  many  years  ago  and  is  now  only  a  picturesque 
ruin ;  but  in  the  most  favored  spot  of  the  park,  surrounded 

i  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  MSS. 


1837]  IN  SUSSEX  381 

by  the  most  poetic  timber  in  the  world,  with  a  fine  view  of 
the  South  Downs  through  their  tall  stems,  is  the  modern 
residence,  an  irregular  cluster  of  great  extent  and  presenting 
no  lack  of  tall  chimneys  built  at  different  times  and  added  as 

occasion  prompted 

I  doubt  whether  I  shall  stay  here  beyond  Saturday ;  but 
I  find  it  difficult  to  get  away,  being  very  popular  with  the 
women,  who  are  charmed  I  do  not  shoot.  I  like  my  friends ; 
they  are  very  good,  warm-hearted  people  indeed.  I  am  going 
to  Petersfield  to  see  the  Jolliffes  to-day.  .  .  . 

Your  affectionate, 

D.1 


To  Mrs.  Wyndham  Lewis. 

WOOLBEDINO,    MlDHUBST, 

Oct.  29. 

Your  letter  of  the  18th  did  not  reach  me  until  yesterday, 
as  I  have  been  rambling  about.  I  date  this  from  the  Maxses, 
where  I  have  been  staying  three  or  four  days  and  which  I 
leave  to-morrow.  The  house  is  full  of  shooting  dandies,  not 
much  in  my  way.  Until  the  last  fortnight,  I  have  been  in 
Bucks,  but  on  the  wing.  I  stayed  a  week  at  Lord  Chandos' 
at  Wotton,  a  few  days  with  Sir  Gore  Ouseley,  and  a  few  days 
at  Newport  Pagnell  in  the  extreme  north  of  the  county, 
where  we  had  a  great  Conservative  dinner.  We  have  indeed 
had  a  brisk  campaign  in  this  respect  in  our  county,  and  I 
am  quite  wearied  with  after-dinner  spouting.  I  have  heard 
nothing  directly  from  Maidstone,  but  indirectly  I  am  sorry 
to  say  I  learnt  yesterday  that  they  are  still  very  eager  about 
their  dinner,  which  they  intend  shall  take  place  in  November, 
though  I  should  think  this  were  impossible.  Tell  my 
colleague  he  must  be  in  his  place  by  the  15th.  There 
is  a  pressing  circular  out.  What  is  to  happen  no  one  knows, 
but  there  is  a  very  active  whip.  Lord  John  had  the  impudence 
to  write  to  Peel,  enquiring  whether  there  would  be  a  division 
on  the  Speakership ;  Sir  Kobert  gave  him  a  caustic  reply  and 
now  the  Whigs  protest  there  will  certainly  be  a  struggle, 
though  I  doubt  it  myself.  My  health  is  excellent.  ... 

An  extraordinary  season  is  expected :  at  present  the  only 
topic  of  interest  is  the  Queen's  visit  to  the  City,  and  all  the 
triumphal  arches  through  which  she  is  to  pass  before  she 
tastes  the  orthodox  turtle  cooked  in  the  sound  of  Bow  Bells ; 
as  there  are  to  be  no  toasts  given  the  affair  must  be  very  dull. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington  dines  there,  and  I  hope  Sir  Kobert 

i  Brit.  Mus.  Addit.  MSS. 


382  PARLIAMENT   AT   LAST  [CHAP,  xvi 

Peel.  The  Queen  and  Lord  Melbourne  are  having  their 
portraits  taken  by  Hayter  at  the  same  time  and  under  the 
same  roof.  Melbourne  lives  only  at  Brighton,  the  other 
Ministers  work,  except  Palmerston,  who  is  Leporello  to  our 
Don  Juan. 

My  kind  regards  to  Wyndham. 

D. 


The  last  entry  in  the  Mutilated  Diary  carries  us  on 
to  the  eve  of  the  meeting  of  Parliament. 


BRADENHAM, 

Nov.  12,  1837.' 

To-morrow  I  leave  Bradenham  to  take  my  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, i.e.,  on  the  15th.  I  have  passed  these  three  months 
since  my  election  chiefly  in  Bucks,  and  in  a  run  of  desultory 
political  reading,  tho'  chiefly  on  Ireland.  Attended  several 
political  dinners  in  my  County,  to  which  I  limit  myself: 
spoke  often  and  well  —  at  Newport  Pagnell,  where  there  was 
great  enthusiasm,  and  Great  Marlow.  After  the  Quarter 
Sessions,  the  17th  of  October,  went  to  Woolbeding,  Lady 
Caroline  Maxse's,  where  I  passed  a  week.  Returned  to 
Bradenham  that  I  might  pass  ten  quiet  days. 

My  health  wonderfully  renovated :  were  it  not  for  the 
anxiety  the  state  of  my  affairs  occasionally  causes  me  I  should 
laugh  at  illness.  My  life  for  the  past  year  has  been  very 
temperate;  my  nervous  system  consequently  much  stronger. 
I  am  now  as  one  leaving  a  secure  haven  for  an  unknown  sea. 
What  will  the  next  twelve  months  produce  ? 


APPENDIX  A 

TITA 

This  interesting  personage,  one  of  the  many  links 
between  Byron  and  Disraeli,  was  a  Venetian  whose  full 
name  was  Giovanni  Battista  Falcieri,  and  who,  entering 
Byron's  service  as  gondolier,  had  become  his  devoted 
personal  servant  and  was  with  him  at  Missolonghi  when 
he  died.  He  is  introduced  in  Don  Juan  (II.,  56), 

4  Battista,  though  (a  name  call'd  shortly  Tita), 
Was  lost  by  getting  at  some  aqua-vita,' 

and  is  mentioned  by  Shelley  in  a  letter  written 
from  Ravenna,  Aug.  15,  1821  :  — '  Tita,  the  Venetian, 
is  here,  and  operates  as  my  valet  —  a  fine  fellow 
with  a  prodigious  black  beard  who  has  stabbed  two 
or  three  people,  and  is  the  most  good-natured  looking 
fellow  I  ever  saw.'1  After  Byron's  death  Tita  fought  for 
the  Greek  cause  at  the  head  of  a  regiment  of  Albanians  ; 
but  at  the  close  of  the  war  he  fell  into  distress,  and  in 
this  condition  was  picked  up  by  Clay  at  Malta  in  the 
summer  of  1830,  and  accompanied  Clay  and  Disraeli  in 
their  subsequent  wanderings  in  the  Levant.  On  their 
return  to  England,  when  Clay  had  no  further  occasion  for 
Tita's  services,  Disraeli  sent  him  down  to  Bradenham, 
where  at  first  he  startled  the  inhabitants  of  the  quiet 
Buckinghamshire  village  by  his  dress,  appearance,  and 
habits,  and  where  he  remained  a  privileged  favourite  till 
Isaac  D'Israeli's  death  in  1848.  The  rest  of  the  story  can 
be  given  in  the  words  in  which  Disraeli  himself  told  it  to 
Sir  Philip  Rose. 

i  Moore's  Life  of  Byron,  III.,  p.  237. 
383 


384  TITA  [APPEND.  A 

One  of  the  chief  anxieties  of  my  sister  and  myself  was,  what 
was  to  be  done  with  Tita.  Our  embarrassment  was  increased  by 
the  announcement  of  his  marriage  to  '  Hughes,'  my  mother's 
former  maid,  who  remained  on  as  housekeeper  —  an  event 
which  we  suspected  had  taken  place  some  years  previously. 
It  was  dreadful  to  think  that  a  man  who  had  been  in  Byron's 
service,  and  soothed  his  last  moments,  who  had  been  the 
faithful  attendant  and  almost  the  companion  and  friend  of 
my  father,  for  so  many  years,  who  had  actually  died  in  his 
arms,  should  end  his  days  in  the  usual  refuge  for  domestic 
servants,  by  keeping  a  public-house,  or  a  greengrocer's  shop ; 
but,  happily,  just  at  that  moment  I  accidentally  met  Sir  John 
Cam  Hobhouse,  in  a  country  house,  and  asked  him  if  he 
remembered  Tita  in  Byron's  service.  He  replied,  'Perfectly.' 
Then  I  said,  '  He  now  wants  a  friend,  and  he  has  an  hereditary 
claim  on  you  as  Byron's  executor.'  I  told  him  his  subsequent 
history  and  my  anxiety  to  provide  for  him,  and  asked  him 
for  an  appointment  as  messenger  in  some  department  of  the 
Government.  Hobhouse  gave  me  little  hope  at  the  time, 
but,  within  a  week  of  our  meeting,  I  received  a  letter  that  a 
messengership  at  the  Board  of  Control  had  fallen  vacant,  to 
which  he  should  be  happy  to  appoint  Tita,  and  so  we  landed 
him.  Another  crisis  occurred  wheii  the  Board  of  Control 
was  abolished,  and  Tita  was  liable  to  be  dismissed,  on  a  small 
pension ;  but  fortunately  we  were  then  in  power,  and  Stanley 
was  head  of  the  India  Office,  to  whom  I  related  Tita's  history, 
and  appealed  to  him  to  look  after  his  interests.  The  result 
was  that  Tita  was  appointed  chief  messenger  at  the  new  India 
Office,  then  temporarily  located  in  Victoria  St.,  but  without 
the  liability  of  having  to  carry  messages. 

Tita  died  in  1874  at  the  age  of  76 ;  and  the  following 
letter  well  illustrates  Disraeli's  habit  of  pertinacious  kind- 
ness for  those  whom  he  had  once  admitted  to  his  friend- 
ship or  taken  under  his  protection  :  — 


To  Queen  Victoria. 

10,  DOWNING  STREET,  WHITEHALL, 

Jan.  13,  1875. 

Mr.  Disraeli  with  his  humble  duty  to  your  Majesty.  He 
earnestly  recommends  to  your  Majesty,  for  a  pension  of  £50, 
Sarah  Falcieri.  the  widow,  after  thirty  years  of  much  devotion, 
of  Giovanni  Battista  Falcieri,  the  faithful  servant  of  Lord 
Byron. 


1875]  LETTER  TO  QUEEN  VICTORIA  385 

In  Mr.  Disraeli's  youth,  45  years  ago,  Falcieri  travelled  with 
him  for  two  years,  in  Egypt,  Syria,  and  other  parts  of  the 
East :  a  most  faithful  and  gifted  man.  Then  he  served  your 
Majesty,  as  a  Messenger  in  the  India  Office;  and  retired 
pensioned  and  universally  beloved.  His  widow  is  an  English- 
woman. 


VOL.  I  — 20 


APPENDIX   B 

LORD   LYNDHURST'S  RECOLLECTIONS 
1826-1832 

The  accounts  of  the  sessions  of  1835  and  1836  on  pp.  301, 
328,  are  taken  from  a  memorandum  headed  '  Summary  of 
Events  —  mainly  Lord  Lyndhurst's  career  from  1826 
to  1836;  written  at  Bradenham,  Sept.  17,  1836,'  and 
inscribed  with  the  motto,  'Those  who  anticipate  their 
century  are  persecuted  when  they  live  and  pilfered  when 
they  are  dead  !  '*  The  earlier  portion  of  the  memorandum, 
though  it  has  no  connexion  with  Disraeli's  own  political 
career,  is  interesting  as  a  contribution  to  Lyndhurst's 
biography  and  perhaps  to  the  history  of  the  time :  — 

Copley  [1826]  at  Duke  of  Montrose's,  which  he  joined  from 
the  circuit  :  very  dull  :  intended  to  go  abroad,  but  detained  a 
week  by  waiting  for  remittance  from  London.  On  his  way 
up  found  at  Manchester  a  communication  from  the  Minister 
offering  him  the  Mastership  of  the  Rolls.  Had  he  been  abroad 
perhaps  it  would  not  have  been  offered.  Lord  Gifford  had 
died  suddenly,  killed  by  his  wife  :  a  cold  and  fever  —  wished 
not  to  travel  to  Dover ;  she  insisted  upon  it,  and  he  died  from 
inflammation  on  his  arrival. 

Canning,  aware  of  the  impending  fate  of  Liverpool,  had 
long  been  maturing  a  party  of  his  own ;  had  sounded  Copley. 
Canning  aware  that  the  Duke  of  Wn.  meditated  the  premiership. 
There  had  long  been  two  parties  in  the  Cabinet,  Canning's 
and  Wellington's;  but  Lord  Liverpool  supported  Canning. 
A  breeze  in  the  H.  of  C.  between  Canning  and  Copley, 
a  little  before  the  death  of  Liverpool,  on  the  Catholic 
question.  Canning  irritated  by  Copley's  rechauffing  in  a 
speech  Phillpotts'  (afterwards  Bishop  of  Exeter)  pamphlet. 

1  Vivian  Grey,  Bk.  VI.  ch.  4 :  '  He  who  anticipates  his  century  is 
generally  persecuted  when  living  and  is  always  pilfered  when  dead.' 

386 


1826-32]  THE   CANNING  MINISTRY  387 

When  Canning  wrote  to  him  to  offer  the  great  seal  added 
at  the  end  '  Phillpotts  non  obstante,'  Canning  wished 
to  get  Brougham  out  of  the  H.  of  C.,  and  offered  him 
the  Chief  Barony  of  the  Exchequer.  B.  took  time  to  con- 
sider, and  was  to  report  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  :  declined 
to  Lyndhurst,  saying  that  he  had  consulted  his  brother  (the 
one  who  died),  who  recommended  him  not  to  leave  the  H.  of  C. 

Lyndhurst,  not  very  sanguine  as  to  the  success  of  the 
Canning  Cabinet ;  but  the  great  seal  and  a  peerage !  '  Who 
would  refuse  it  ?  I  thought  I  would  not  baulk  fortune,  and 
that  a  seat  in  the  H.  of  L.  would  always  keep  me  a 
career.'  Canning  had  resolved  not  only  not  to  press  the 
Catholic  Question,  but  had  promised  the  King  that  he  would 
prevent  it  being  carried  in  the  Commons.  Difficulty  in  form- 
ing a  Cabinet  unrivalled.  Now  the  difficulty  is  to  satisfy  so 
many,  then  to  find  Ministers.  The  seals  of  the  Home  Office 
actually  begging,  as  Canning  wanted  a  Protestant  Secretary. 
At  last  Sturges  Bourne  took  them  out  of  mere  friendship. 
Canning  elated  at  obtaining  the  adhesion  of  Lansdowne : 
Holland  very  eager  to  take  office. 

Nothing  annoyed  Canning  more  than  the  denunciation  of 
Lord  Grey.  Said  to  Lyndhurst,  '  I  feel  I  must  remain  in  the 
Commons,  but  I  am  half  tempted  to  ask  for  a  peerage  merely 
to  let  fly  at  him.'  Nothing  could  exceed  the  virulence  of  the 
party  of  defection.  There  was  a  dinner,  I  think,  at  Bathurst's. 
It  had  been  an  invitation  of  a  month.  The  Copleys  had  been 
asked  before  the  break-up.  L.  hesitated  about  going,  but 
thought  it  was  shabby  and  spiritless  to  decline.  Went  and 
sat  next  to  Mrs.  Arbuthnot:  nothing  could  be  more  bitter. 
The  only  person  who  was  civil  and  good-humoured  was  old 
Eldon.  Lady  L.  sat  next  to  him. 

Canning  had  been  long  ailing.  Eat  voraciously.  There  was 
a  Cabinet  dinner  at  Lord  L.'s  at  Wimbledon.  A  beautiful  day 
with  a  clear  blue  sky,  but  a  cutting  easterly  wind.  Canning 
rode  down.  They  were  tempted  by  the  fine  weather  to  hold 
the  Cabinet  in  the  garden.  Soon  Canning  complained  of  the 
cold  and  shivered.  Went  in  to  dinner,  but  even  the  dinner, 
though  he  eat  voraciously,  did  not  remove  it.  Went  home, 
was  taken  ill,  and  died  very  shortly. 

Nothing  can  give  an  idea  of  the  scene  under  Goderich.  No 
order  at  the  Cabinet.  A  most  ludicrous  scene.  Nothing  ever 
done.  Anglesea  sitting  with  a  napkin  round  his  head  from 
the  tic,  but  the  only  one  who  seemed  to  exert  himself.  As 
they  went  home  L.  said  to  a  colleague,  '  This  can  never  last.' 
In  a  few  days  Goderich  sent  for  L.  to  Downing  Street  —  walking 
up  and  down  the  room  in  great  agitation,  wringing  his  hands, 
and  even  shedding  tears.  Told  L.  that  he  must  resign.  L. 


388  LYNDHURST'S   RECOLLECTIONS        [APPEND.  B 

tried  to  reason  with  him,  but  no  avail.  Resigned  the  next 
day.  Geo.  IV.  sent  for  L.  and  asked  what  he  was  to  do.  L. 
said  there  was  only  one  thing.  'Send  for  the  Duke  of 
Wellington.' 

Knighton  had  arranged  the  Canning  Cabinet,  and  was  C.'s 
friend.  That  appointment  had  been  long  maturing  —  much 
intrigue.  Knighton  very  able — the  real  king  of  this  country  — 
did  everything  —  wrote  all  the  King's  letters.  When  a  weak  or 
indolent  person  in  a  high  situation  once  admits  the  assistance 
of  an  inferior,  soon  becomes  a  slave.  What  is  occasional 
becomes  a  habit.  The  Wellington  Cabinet  broke  up  on  the 
Catholic  question,  and  were  out  for  four  and  twenty  hours. 
The  King  was  firm.  The  Duke,  Peel,  L.,  &c.,  went  down  to 
Windsor  and  resigned  the  seals.  The  King  kissed  each  of 
them.  George  IV.  was  much  distressed  —  acted  in  spite 
of  Knighton.  They  went  back  to  London  and  dined  at 
Bathurst's,  and  were  in  high  spirits  at  being  free  of  office. 
In  the  middle  of  the  night  letters  came  to  the  Duke  and  Lynd. 
giving  up.  Knighton  had  worked  upon  his  distress  after  their 
departure. 

The  Catholic  Bill.  —  Lord  Grey  wanted  office,  and  it  was 
known  that  he  would  have  taken  the  viceroyalty  of  Ire- 
land (e.g.).  Once  the  intention  of  the  Duke  to  admit  the 
Grey  party.  Took  a  sudden  prejudice  to  Grey.  Something 
happened  on  a  coal  committee.  Told  L.  afterwards  he  had 
seen  enough  of  Grey  that  morning  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
him. 

1832.  —  L.'s  motion  that  enfranchisement  should  precede 
disfranchisement  threw  out  the  Whigs.  It  was  the  intention 
of  the  Tories  to  make  the  Speaker  Premier.  A  weak  man, 
but  a  stalking-horse.  Peel  would  have  been  the  virtual 
Premier.  L.  was  deputed  to  make  the  offer.  I  must  do 
Manners  Sutton  the  justice  to  say  that  he  at  first  burst  out 
laughing  and  said,  '  Why,  it  will  be  the  Doctor  over  again.' 
But  after  some  conversation  he  entertained  the  idea,  seemed 
very  complacent,  and  asked  until  to-morrow  to  decide. 
Thence  L.  went  to  offer  Baring  the  Chancellorship  of  the 
Exchequer.  He  sent  for  Holmes  out  of  the  H.  of  C.  and 
told  him  to  find  Baring  and  send  him  to  him.  Baring  hesitated 
and  asked  for  twelve  hours.  The  next  morning  M.  S.  and 
B.  both  refused  in  consequence  of  the  vote  of  the  H.  of  C. 
It  was  the  original  intention  not  to  have  given  the  House 
time  to  come  to  this  vote,  but  to  have  prorogued  it  that 
morning.  The  hesitation  of  M.  S.  and  B.,  and  the  unwilling- 
ness of  Peel  to  act  without  their  adhesion,  lost  everything. 
Had  the  Tories  formed  their  Government  it  would  have  had 
the  power  of  modifying  the  Reform  Bill. 


1832]  THE   REFORM   BILL  389 

Among  some  of  my  papers  will  be  found  an  account J  of 
the  secret  political  movements  of  1834,  and  the  formation  of 
the  Peel  Government,  in  which  preceding  movements  I  was 
engaged.  Four  places  in  the  Cabinet  offered  to  Lord  Stanley : 
one  reason  of  his  declining,  unwillingness  to  act  with  the 
Duke  of  Wellington. 

A  few  undated  political  notes,  written  in  Disraeli's 
hand  apparently  about  the  same  time,  and  relating  to 
the  same  period,  may  conveniently  be  added. 

Committee  on  the  Reform  Bill  Sir  James  Graham,  Lord 
J.  Russell,  Lord  Durham,  Lord  Duncaunon,  divided  on  the 
ballot,  three  to  one  in  favour.  The  one  was  Duncauuon :  not 
known —  Graham  always  insinuating  it  was  himself.  Had 
Lord  Durham  lived  would  have  made  a  communication  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  he  was  so  indignant. 

On  leave  to  bring  in  the  Reform  Bill,  Peel  was  anxious 
to  meet  it  at  once  with  a  direct  negative — it  would  have 
been  thrown  out  by  a  very  considerable  majority,  and  the 
question  would  have  been  finished.  Lord  Granville  Somerset 
was  the  person  who  dissuaded  Peel.  The  consequence  of  the 
delay  was  the  agitation  of  the  country,  &c. 

Lord  Duncannon  twice  offered  O'Connell  office  —  once  under 
the  Government  of  Lord  Grey  with  the  Premier's  sanction. 
It  was  the  Mastership  of  the  Rolls. 

i  See  pp.  262-266. 


APPENDIX   C 


The  portrait  of  Lyndhurst  by  D'Orsay,  which  is  repro- 
duced in  this  volume,  has  an  interesting  history.  It  some- 
how came  into  the  possession  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  was  by 
him  despatched  to  Christie's  with  other  pictures  and  his  col- 
lection of  china  when  he  left  Carlton  House  Terrace  in  1875. 
Disraeli,  hearing  that  the  picture  was  to  be  sold,  sent  Mr. 
Montagu  Corry,  his  private  secretary,  to  buy  it  ;  but  in  the 
meantime  it  had  occurred  to  Mr.  Cecil  Raikes  to  invite  a 
number  of  Conservative  members  of  Parliament  to  join 
him  in  securing  it  with  a  view  to  a  presentation.  The 
rival  bidders  reached  the  auction  room  about  the  same 
time,  but  only  to  find  that  the  picture  had  been  already 
sold  at  an  extremely  low  price.  By  the  offer  of  a  very 
handsome  profit,  Mr.  Corry  tried  to  obtain  it,  but  his  offer 
was  rejected  ;  and  eventually,  after  some  amusing  man- 
oeuvres by  the  purchaser,  which  are  related  in  the  Life  of 
Raikes,1  it  was  secured  by  Mr.  Raikes  for  a  sum  nearly  ten 
times  as  great  as  the  original  auction  price.  The  picture 
was  sent  to  the  Prime  Minister  accompanied  by  the  follow- 
ing letter  :  — 

HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  LIBRARY, 

July  2, 1875. 

DEAR  MB.  DISRAELI, 

Knowing  the  friendship  that  united  you  both  to  the  late 
Lord  Lyndhurst  and  to  Count  D'Orsay,  we  beg  to  express  the 

1  Pages  100-102.  The  story  as  given  there  differs  in  some  small 
particulars  from  the  version  here  adopted,  this  latter  being  based 
on  a  contemporary  memorandum  written  by  Lord  Barrington. 

390 


1875]  A   GRACEFUL   ACT  OF   FRIENDSHIP  391 

hope  that  you  will  accept  from  us  the  portrait  of  the  one 
painted  by  the  other  as  a  mark  of  our  sincere  admiration  and 
respect. 

Barrington,  Robert  Bourke,  Henry  Chaplin,  W.  Romaine 
Callender,  George  Cubitt,  W.  Hart  Dyke,  Henry  W. 
Eaton,  Alex.  Staveley  Hill,  Henry  G.  Lennox,  John 
Manners,  Charles  H.  Mills,  Mahon,  Henry  W.  Peek, 
Henry  Cecil  Raikes,  Sandon,  W.  H.  Smith,  Newport, 
Fred.  Stanley,  Gerard  Sturt,  C.  Sykes,  Richard  Wallace, 
Row.  Winn,  H.  Drummond  Wolff. 

Disraeli    addressed    his    acknowledgment    to    Lord    Bar- 
rington. 

2,  WHITEHALL  GARDENS, 

July  12, 1875. 

MY  DEAR  BARRINGTON, 

Do  me  the  favour  of  expressing  to  those  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  who,  with  yourself,  have  made  me  an 
offering,  which  I  infinitely  value,  the  gratitude  and  the  gratifi- 
cation which  I  feel  at  this  graceful  act  of  friendship,  and  my 
sense  of  the  refined  manner  in  which  it  has  been  conveyed. 
Yours  ever, 

B.  DISRAELI. 


INDEX 


Abinger,  Lord,  265,  277 

A'Court,  Col.,  205 

A' Court,  Capt.,  205 

Adam,  Sir  Frederick,  158 

Aix,  48 

Albania,  visit  to,  158,  159 

Aldborough,  Lady,  233,  236 

Alexandria,  173 

Algiers,  154 

Allen,  Lord,  247 

Almack's,  230,  252 

Alps,  96,  98,  99,  100 

Alroy,  181,  222,  236 ;  published,  194- 
200 

Alroy,  David,  121 

Althorp,  Lord,  260 

Alvanley,  Lord,  288,  289 

Angerstein,  Capt.,  216,  255 

Anson,  Mrs.,  303 

Anson,  George,  250 

Antwerp,  43,  45,  46 

Arbuthnot,  Mrs.,  387 

Ashburton,  Lord,  59,  265,  332 

Ashley,  Lord,  332 

Athenaeum :  on  Henrietta  Temple, 
344 

Athenaeum  Club  —  fails  to  secure 
election  to,  206 

Athens,  165 

Auckland,  Lord,  280 

Austen,  Benjamin,  80,  94,  96,  99, 
111,  121;  letters  to,  94,  116,  121, 
143,  145,  156,  158,  164,  201,  202, 
203,  211,  212,  220,  237,  240,  259, 
273,  347,  359 

Austen,  Mrs.  Sara,  80,  81,  82,  83, 
84,  89;  letter  from,  81;  letters 
to  Sarah  Disraeli,  96,  111;  letters 
to,  122,  165,  168,  170,  207,  213, 
238,  239 


Baillie,  Henry,  292 

Balzac,  257 

Baring,       Alexander : 

burton,  Lord 
Baring,  Francis,  332 


Ash- 


Baring,  H.,  367 

Baring,  Sir  Thomas,  204,  211,  212, 

213 
Barnes,     Thomas,     Editor     of     The 

Times,  301,  319,  323,  332,  333,  334 
Barrington,  Lord  :  letter  to,  391 
Barrow,  Sir  John,  65,  72,  156 
Basevi,  George,  375 
Basevi,  Maria :  see  D'Israeli,  Maria 
Basevi  family,  11,  12 
Bath,  222 
Beauclerk,  377 
Beaufort,  Duke  of,  332 
Beaven,  Rev.  Alfred  —  letter  to,  221 
Beckford,  W.,  191,  199,  248,  253 
Bentinck,  Lord  George,  255,  268 
Bentinck,     Life     of     Lord     George: 

quoted,  2 

Beresford,  Sir  J.,  277 
Berkeley,  Grantley,  256 
Berkeley,  Henry,  380 
Bertolini,  107 
Bethmann,  51 
Blackwood,     Mrs.,    231,    232,    233, 

254,  303 

Blackwood' s  Magazine,  83 
Blessington,    Lady,    247,    248,    249, 

255,  256,    356;     letters    to,    256, 
257,    259,    305,    326,     354,    360; 
letter  from,  258 

Bolingbroke,  Lord,  218,  219,  313 

Bonaparte,  Joseph,  234 

Bonaparte,     Lucien :      see     Canino, 

Prince  of 
Bonn,  49 
Bosphorus,  168 
Botta,  Paul  EmDe,  235 
Bourne,  Sturges,  387 
Bouverie,  Mrs.  Pleydell,  157 
Brackenbury,  144 
Bradenham  House,  120,  126 
Brandes,     Dr.     Georg:       Study     of 

Beaconsfield     quoted,      361 ;       on 

Venetia,     or    a    Poet's    Daughter, 

366 
Brewster,  Dr.,  67 


393 


394 


INDEX 


Brewster,    Dr.    F.    C.:     Disraeli    in 

Outline  Quoted,  193 
Bright,  John,  119,  241 
Brougham,     Lord,     129,     278,     279, 

302,  304,  387 
Bruges,  42,  43,  44 
Brunei,  138,  139 
Brussels,  45,  47 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  273 
Bucks  Gazette,  214,  274 
Bucks  Herald,  214,  220 
Bulwer,  Lytton,  123,  124,  125,  134, 

170,  202,  203,  204,  211,  213,  216, 

222,       223,        235,        344,        354; 

letter    to,    170;     letter    to    Isaac 

D'Israeli,      267 ;       on      Henrietta 

Temple,  344 

Bulwer,  Life  of:  quoted,  170 
Bulwer,  Henry,  124,  125,  302 
Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  129,  211, 

367,  368-370 
Burdett,  Lady,  369 
Burghersh,  Lady,  303 
Burghersh,  Lord,  154 
Burke,  276,  307,  308 
Byron,    Lord,    14,    37,    38,    70,    97, 

98,   106,  216,  360,  361,  362,  363, 

383,    384;     Letters    and    Journals 

quoted,  14 

Cadiz,  143,  144 

Cairo,  173,  175 

Campbell,  Lord,  305 

Campbell,  Sir  H.,  367 

Campbell,  Thomas,  191 

Canino,  Prince  of,  233,  239,  256 

Canning,  58,  63,  66,  129,  276,  386, 
387,  388 ;  death,  387 

Canterbury,  Lady,  356 

Carloni,  Signer,  108 

Carlton  Club :  nominated  candi- 
date for,  276;  elected  member, 
326 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  245,  297 

Carrington,  Lord,  250,  251,  268 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  247,  250,  251, 
256,  303 

Chandos,  Lord,  214,  215,  221, 
262,  263,  264,  265,  268,  273, 
274,  281 

Charleville,  Lady,  233 

Chatham,  Lord,  276 

Chequers  Court,  353 

Chesterfield,  Lady,  303 

Cholmeley,  Lady  Georgians,  251 

Cholmeley,  Sir  M.,  251 


Ciceri,  Dr.,  101 

Clay,  James,  154,  155,  156,  157, 
158,  160,  170,  171,  175,  216, 
383 

Clement,  Louis,  140 

Clements,  Lord,  233 

Coblenz,  49 

Cockburn,  Alexander,  124,  125 

Cogan,  Dr.,  24 

Cogan,  Rev.  Eli,  24 

Cohen,  Francis,  37 

Colburn,  Henry,  80,  81,  82,  83,  84, 
85,  92,  117,  123,  124,  127,  133, 
135,  194,  201,  223,  258,  338, 
344,  359 

Cologne,  47,  49 

Combermere,  Lady :  death,  356 

Como,  Lake,  100 

Coningsby,  72,  77,  266,  298,  299 

Constable,  Archibald,  77,  78 

Constantinople,  168 

Constitution,  Vindication  of  Eng- 
lish: see  Vindication  of  English 
Constitution  in  a  Letter  to  a 
Noble  and  Learned  Lord 

Contarini  Fleming,  20,  26,  33,  34, 
35,  36,  39,  84,  96,  99,  105,  166, 
167,  172,  237;  published,  181- 
193 

Conyngham,  Albert,  250 

Copley :  see  Lyndhurst,  Lord 

Cordova,  146 

Corfu,  158 

Cork,  Lady,  234,  236,  248,  250,  251, 
256,  343 

Corn  Laws,  217,  229 

Cotton,  Sir  J.  H.,  221 

Courier  quoted,  288 

Crisis  Examined,  The,  269 

Crockford's :  election  to,  252 

Croker,  Crofton,  37 ;  Fairy  Legends 
of  Ireland,  61 

Croker,  John  Wilson,  70,  72,  206, 
209,  295,  332 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  328 

Curran,  J.  P.,  38 

Cyprus,  171 

Damiani,  171 
d'Arblay,  Madame,  191 
Dardanelles,  167 
Darmstadt,  51 
Dashwood,  224 
Davies,  Scrope,  38 
Davy,  Lady,  51 
Dawson,  Mrs.,  377 


INDEX 


395 


Dawson,  George,  277 

de  Constant,  Seymour,  256 

de  Haber,  Baron,  206,  347 

d'Haussez,  Baron,  206,  207 

de  L'Isle,  Lord,  329 

Dendera,  174 

Denvil,  262 

D'Orsay,  Count,  203,  247,  252, 
255,  257,  262,  292,  294,  337, 
353,  356,  358;  letters  from,  258, 
282,  345,  348,  357;  portrait  of 
Lord  Lyndhurst,  390 

De  Quincey,  38 

Dick,  Q.,  367 

Disraeli:    origin  of  name,  2,  6,  41 

Disraeli,  Benjamin  —  ancestry,  1—8 ; 
birth,  18 ;  at  Miss  Roper's 
school  (Islington),  19;  at  Rev. 
J.  Potticany's  school  (Black- 
heath),  19;  baptism,  23;  at 
Rev.  Eli  Cogan's  school  (Higham 
Hall),  i  24;  in  solicitors'  offices, 
32,  40 ;  continental  tour,  42— 
53 ;  decides  to  abandon  law, 
53 ;  stock  exchange  specula- 
tions, 55,  56 ;  publishes  En- 
quiry into  the  Plans,  Progress, 
and  Policy  of  the  American 
Mining  Companies,  57;  pub- 
lishes Lawyers  and  Legisla- 
tors, or  Notes  on  the  American 
Mining  Companies,  58 ;  pub- 
lishes The  Present  State  of 
Mexico,  59 ;  edits  Life  of 
Paul  Jones,  60,  61 ;  associated 
with  Murray  and  Powles  in 
establishing  new  periodical,  61— 
78;  publishes  Vivian  Grey, 
79-93;  visit  to  Switzerland  and 
Italy,  94-1 1 1 ;  publishes  sequel 
to  Vivian  Grey,  112-115; 
entered  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  115; 
illness,  116;  publishes  The 
Voyage  of  Captain  Popanilla, 
117-120;  publishes  The  Young 
Duke,  123-135;  tour  in  the 
East,  136-180;  publishes  Con- 
tarini  Fleming,  181-193 ;  pub- 
lishes Alroy,  193-199;  pub- 
lishes The  Rise  of  Iskander, 
199 ;  withdraws  from  Lincoln's 
Inn,  201 ;  publishes  England 
and  France :  or  a  Cure  for  the 
Ministerial  Gallomania,  205- 
209 ;  publishes  Ixion  in  Heaven, 
223;  publishes  The  Infernal 


Marriage,  223 ;  publishes  The 
Revolutionary  Epick,  238-247 ; 
joins  Conservative  party,  260- 
295 ;  publishes  Vindication  oj 
the  English  Constitution  in  a 
Letter  to  a  Noble  and  Learned 
Lord,  306;  publishes  The  Spirit 
of  Whiggism,  324-326;  publishes 
Henrietta  Temple,  337-344  ;  finan- 
cial embarrassments,  346-359  ; 
sworn  in  as  -justice  of  the 
peace,  351 ;  epileptic  attack, 
357;  publishes  Venetia,  360- 
366;  elected  M.P.  for  Maid- 
stone,  375 

Works  —  Alroy,  173,  181,  222; 
published,  194-199 ;  Coningsby, 
72,  76,  266,  298,  299;  Contarini 
Fleming,  20,  26,  33,  34,  35,  36, 
39,  84,  96,  99,  105,  166,  167, 
172,  237;  published,  181-193; 
Crisis  Examined,  The,  269 ; 
Diary:  quoted,  44,  45,  46,  47, 
48,  98,  181,  192,  234,  235,  236, 
237,  248,  253,  255,  293,  304,  332, 
339,  347,  350,  367,  382;  Diary 
Mutilated:  quoted,  234,  235,  236, 
237,  248,  293,  304,  339,  347,  350, 
367,  382 ;  Endymion  quoted, 
120,  125,  208,  230,  260;  England 
and  France :  or  a  Cure  for  Mini- 
sterial Gallomania,  published, 
205-209;  Henrietta  Temple  pub- 
lished, 337-344;  Infernal  Mar- 
riage, 27;  published,  223-258; 
Iskander,  The  Rise  of,  199,  222 ; 
Ixion  in  Heaven,  27,  223 ; 
Letters  (1887  edition) :  quoted, 
136,  142,  145,  146,  147,  148,  152, 
154,  155,  156,  158,  163,  164,  165, 
168,  171,  175,  176,  177,  191,  199, 
205,  216,  223,  224,  227,  231,  232, 
234,  247,  248,  253,  261,  262,  268, 
277,  278,  280,  281,  284,  293,  304, 
317,  318,  326,  327,  335,  368,  370, 
372,  373,  375 ;  Lytton,  Life  of  Bul- 
wer,  85 ;  Mel  .  .  .  .  e,  An  Heroic 
Epistle  to,  333 ;  Memoir  of 
Isaac  D'Israeli  quoted,  2-4,  9, 
10,  12,  16,  17;  Novels,  General 
Preface  to:  quoted,  229,  337, 
371 ;  Popanilla,  The  Voyage  of 
Captain,  41;  published,  117- 
120;  Revolutionary  Epick,  The, 
194;  published,  237-247;  Sind- 
bad  the  Sailor,  A  New  Voyage 


396 


INDEX 


of,  333  ;  Speeches  —  during  High 
Wycombe  elections  (Red  Lion 
speech),  213,  214,  215,  218-220, 
269-274;  Ducrow  simile,  272; 
during  Taunton  election,  282, 
285;  at  Lewes,  326,  327;  at 
Aylesbury,  333,  334;  during 
Maidstone  election,  373-374 ; 
Sybil,  371 ;  Tancred  quoted,  349  ; 
Venetia,  or  the  Poet's  Daughter, 
337, 356,  358,  359,  360-366 ;  Vindi- 
cation of  the  English  Constitution 
in  a  letter  to  a  Noble  and  Learned 
Lord :  published,  306 ;  Vivian 
Grey,  20,  26,  34,  35,  36,  38,  39, 
53,  54,  74,  75,  76,  102,  107,  176, 
181,  182,  184,  185,  187,  192,  236, 
386;  published,  79-93;  sequel 
published,  112-115;  What  is  He? 
225-227;  Whiggism,  The  Spirit 
of,  324-326;  Young  Duke,  The, 
176;  published,  123-135 

D'Israeli,  Benjamin  (grandfather), 
2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  9,  21 

D'Israeli,  Isaac  (father),  9-17,  21, 
22,  23,  36,  110,  116,  120,  121; 
letters  to,  95,  96,  99,  103,  104, 
105,  107,  109,  137,  140,  144, 
147,  154,  155,  159,  164,  165, 
168,  177,  279 ;  letter  from,  306 

D'Israeli,  Memoir  of  Isaac :  quoted, 
2-4,  9,  10,  12,  16,  17 

Disraeli,  Jacobus  (James),  18,  23, 
117 

D'Israeli,  Maria  (mother),  11,  12, 
75;  letters  to,  21,  149;  letter 
to  Murray,  75 

Disraeli,  Naphtali,  18 

Disraeli,  Ralph  (Raphael),  18,  21, 
23 ;  letter  to,  156 

D'Israeli,  Sarah  (grandmother),  4, 
6,  7,  8,  9 

Disraeli,  Sarah  (sister),  12,  18,  23; 
letters  to,  42,  43,  45,  47,  49,  51, 
52,  110,  146,  152,  171,  173,  175, 
178,  191,  199,  203,  204,  205,  216, 
222,  223,  224,  231,  232,  233,  234, 
245,  250,  251,  252,  261,  262,  268, 
277,  278,  280,  281,  284,  292,  302, 
317,  319,  326,  327,  331,  334,  355, 
367,  370,  371,  372,  373,  375,  377, 
379,  380;  letters  from,  133,  134, 
210,  211 

'  Dizzy '  —  used  as  signature,  375 

Don,  Sir  George,  138,  141 

Don,  lady,  138,  140,  141,  143 


Dorset     County     Chronicle     quoted, 

284,  285 

Douce,  Francis,  37 
Drachenfels,  49 
Ducrow  simile,  272 
Dudley,  Lord,  51,  256 
Dufferin,     Lady :      see     Blackwood, 

Mrs. 

Duncannon,  Lord,  280,  389 
Dunciad  of  To-day,  84 
Durham,   Lord,   248,   249,   250,  253, 

260,    261,     263,    273,    322,    389; 

letter  to,  267 ;   letter  from,  268 

'E.,  Mrs.,'  30 

Ebrington,  Lord,  216 

Edinburgh,  63 

Edinburgh     Review,     77,     78,     380; 

on  Venetia,  365 
Egerton,  Lady,  370 
Egerton,  Lord  Francis,  367 
Ehrenbreitstein,  49 
Eldon,  Lord,  57,  58,  91,  387 
Eliot,   Lord,  205;    on   The   Vindica- 
tion   of   the    English    Constitution, 

317 

Elliot,  Mrs.  W.,  70 
Ellice,  'Bear,'  322,  355 
Ellis,  Henry,  204 
Elphinstone,  Lord,  247 
Ems,  50 
Encyclopaedia      Britannica :       article 

quoted,  125 
Endymion,    quoted,    120,    125,    208, 

230,  260 
England    and    France :     or,    a    Cure 

for     the     Ministerial     Gallomania, 

2'»5-209 
Enquiry    into    the    Plans,     Progress, 

and  Policy  of  the  American  Mining 

Companies,  57 
Escott,  Bickham,  302 
Essex,  Lady,  250 
Evans,    T.    M.,   55,    56;    letters  to, 

125,  220 

Evans,  Maj.  Viney,  376,  379 
Exmouth,  Lord,  367,  377 

Falcieri,    Giovanni    Battista    (Tita), 

157,  175,  216,  354,  362,  383-385 
Fancourt,  Major,  332 
Fector,  367 
Field,  Baron,  142 
Flaxman,  107 
Fleuriz,  144,  145 
Florence,  107,  108 


INDEX 


397 


Floyd,  Lady,  377 

Fobin,  Mrs.,  51 

Follett,  Sir  William,  265,  302 

Fonblanque,  Albany,  203 

Forester,  Lord,  367 

Frankfort,  51 

Froissart,  64 

Froude :     Lord   Beaconsfield   quoted, 

33 ;    on  Henrietta  Temple,  344 
Furtado,  Rebecca  Mendez,  7 

Gabay,  Sarah  Siprut  de :  see 
D'Israeli,  Sarah  (grandmother) 

Galignani,  176,  202 

Garnett,  Dr. :  Lord  Beaconsfield 
and  Shettey  quoted,  362 

Genappe,  47 

Geneva,  96,  98,  99 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  58 

George  IV.,  King,  388 

Ghent,  44,  45 

Gibraltar,  137,  140 

Gibson,  Milner,  19 

Gifford,  Lord,  386 

Giovanni :  see  Falcieri,  Giovanni 
Battista 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  112,  276,  277,  390 

Glenelg,  Lord,  322 

Globe:    controversy  with  editor,  318 

Goderich,  Lord,  387 

Goethe,  176,  192 

Goldsmith,  Oliver:  Isaac  D'Israeli's 
resemblance  to,  17 

Gordon,  Sir  Charles,  142 

Gore,  Mrs.,  203,  377 

Gore,  Montagu,  246 

Gore,  Charles,  204 

Goulburn,  H.,  265 

Graham,  Sir  James,  260,  265,  302, 
331,  389 

Gramonts,  the,  356 

Granada,  146,  147 

Grant,  Charles,  223 

Gregory,  Sir  William:  Auto- 
biography quoted,  155 

Grenfell,  Pascoe,  213 

Greville :  Diary  quoted,  268 

Grey,  Gen.  Charles,  213,  215,  220, 
273,  274 ;  letter  to,  222 

Grey,  Lord,  225,  254,  255,  256, 
260,  262,  388 

Guercino,  5 

Hall,  Peter,  84 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  310 
Hamilton,  Duchess  of,  250,  251 


Hamilton,  Walter,  37 

Hanmer,  Sir  J.,  368 

Hans  of  Malines,  46 

Hardinge,  Sir  Henry,  265,  318 

Heath's  Book  of  Beauty :  contributes 
to,  338 

Heidelberg,  51 

Heine,  192 

Henrietta  Temple,  337-344 

Herries,  J.  C.,  205 

Hertford,  Lord,  248,  253 

Higham  Hall,  Walthamstow,  24,  25 

High  Wycombe  (Chepping  Wy- 
combe)  —  Parliamentary  candi- 
dature for :  see  under  Parlia- 
ment 

Hobhouse,  Sir  John  Cam,  59,  322, 
384 

Holland,  Lord,  387 

Hook,  Theodore,  93 

Horton,  Wilmot,  65,66 

Hume,  Joseph,  202,  211,  212, 
377 

Huy,  47 

Infernal  Marriage,  27,  257 ;  pub- 
lished, 223 

Irish  Corporations  and  Church 
Bill,  328 

Irish  Tithe  Bill,  278,  300 

Irving,  Washington,  140 

Iskander,  The  Rise  of,  199,  222 

Israeli,  Isaac,  6 

Ixion  in  Heaven,  27,  223 

Jaffa,  171 

Jameson,  Mrs.,  199 

Jeffrey,  Lord,  77,  78 

Jekyll,  Joseph,  236 

Jerdan,      William,      83,      92,      134 

letter  to,  92  ;    Autobiography,  92 
Jerusalem,  172 

Jewish  Chronicle  quoted,  19,  20 
Jones,  Rev.  E.,  20 
Jones,  Life  of  Paul,  60,  61 
Jowett,  Life  of,  quoted,  202 
Juliers,  48 

Kalio,  160 

Kinnaird,  Douglas,  122 
Knatchbull,  Sir  E.,  263,  265 
Knighton,  Sir  W.,  388 
Knowles,  Sheridan,  '232 

'L.E.L.,'  203,204 
Labouchere,  Henry,  280,  284 


398 


INDEX 


Lafitte,  Charles,  247 

Lamb,  Lady  Caroline,  363,  365 

Landseer,  Edwin,  256 

Lang :  Life  of  Lockhart,  61,  63,  69 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  387 

Laras,  3 

Lawyers  and  Legislators :  or,  Notes 
on  the  American  Mining  Com- 
panies, 58,  59 

Layard,  Sir  Henry,  231,  235,  239; 
Autobiography  quoted,  40,  80, 
81,  82,  111 

Leader,  367 

Lennox,  Lord  William,  204 

Lewis,  Wyndham,  232,  252,  372, 
373,  374,  377 

Lewis,  Mrs.  Wyndham,  204 ;  letters 
to  Maj.  Viney  Evans,  376,  379; 
letters  to,  376,  378,  381 

Liddell,  Captain,  157 

Liege,  47 

Limerick,  Lord,  157 

Lindo,  B.  E.,  375 

Literary  Gazette,  83 

Literary  Magnet,  84 

Lockhart,  J.  G.,  62,  63,  64,  65,  66,  68, 
69,  70,  71,  72,  76,  77,  78,  190,  235, 
318;  letters  from  Murray  to, 
67,  72 ;  letters  to,  70,  71,  72 

Londonderry,  Lady,  8,  303 

Londonderry,  Lord,  279 

Lonsdale,  Lady,  251 

Louis-Philippe,  King  of  France,  207 

Lowther,  Lord,  318 

Lyndhurst,  Lord,  252,  256,  261, 
262,  263,  264,  265,  268,  277,  278, 
279,  300,  301,  303,  304,  306,  317, 
323,  329,  337,  354,  358,  371,  386- 
389,  390,  391;  letters  from,  323, 
336 ;  on  Vindication  of  the  Eng- 
lish Constitution,  317 ;  on  Letters 
of  Runnymede,  332 ;  Disraeli's 
appreciation  of,  quoted,  329 ; 
Venetia  dedicated  to,  360 ;  mar- 
riage, 377 ;  '  Summary  of  Events 
—  mainly  Lord  Lyndhurst's  ca- 
reer from  1826  to  1836,'  386-389 ; 
D'Orsay's  portrait,  390-391 

Lytton,  Mrs.  Bulwer:  letter  to, 
378 

Lytton,  Life  of  Bulwer,  85 

Macaulay,  Lord,  129,  190,  223,  365 
Maclise,  D.,  332 

Madden's  Countess  of  Blesspngton 
quoted,  250 


Maggiore,  Lake,  100 
Maginn,  Dr.,  69,  199 
Mahmud  II.,  Sultan  of  Turkey,  169 
Mahon,  Lord,  140,  332 
Maidstone :      Parliamentary     candi- 
dature for :   see  under  Parliament 
Mainz,  49,  52 
Malcolm,  Sir  John,  208 
Malta,  154,  156,  157 
Malt  tax,  263,  269 
Mann,  Sir  Horace,  4 
Mannheim,  52 

Maples,  Mr.,  33 ;  letter  to,  41 
Marathon,  167 

Marriage,  thoughts  of,  232,  233 
Mathews,  Charles,  236,  255 
Maurice,   Byron's  boatman,   97,   98, 

99 

Maxse,  Lady  Caroline,  379,  380 
Maxse,  James,  379,  380 
Maxwell's  Life  of  Wellington  quoted, 

275 

Mazzini,  241 
Mechlin,  45 
Medinas,  3 

Mehemet  Pasha,  of  Yanina,  159 
Mehemet  Ali,  176,  177 
Melbourne,     Lord,    254,    255,     279, 

280,  304,  321,  377,  382 
Mel  .  .  .  e,    An    Heroic    Epistle    to, 

333 

Melville,  Whyte,  380 
Mendez  da  Costas,  3 
Mercandotti,  150 
Meredith,  W.,  42,  43,  45,  46,  123,  124, 

137,  138,  141,  148,  155,  157,  158, 

159,    160,    170,    176,    179;    death, 

177 ;  diary  quoted,  362 
Milan,  101 
Milman,  Dean,  190 
Milton,  243 

Milton,  Lord :  death,  302 
Ministry  (Canning),  387,  388 
Ministry     (coalition) :      negotiations 

to  form,  279,  280 
Ministry  (Grey),  260 
Ministry     (Melbourne),     260,     264, 

355 
Ministry     (Peel),     260,     264,     265, 

278,  279 

Ministry  (Wellington),  388 
Montalembert,  Comtesse,  370 
Montreuil,  95 
Moore,    Thomas,    37,    38,    39,    204, 

236 ;  Life  of  Byron,  365,  383 
Morales,  48 


INDEX 


399 


Morgan,  Lady,  203 

Morley,  Lord ;  Life  of  Gladstone 
quoted,  112,  277 

Morning  Herald:  on  election  for 
Maidstone,  377 

Morning  Post,  304 ;  contributes 
leading  articles  to,  305 

Moskova,  Prince  of,  247 

Motley's  Correspondence  quoted, 
232 

Mulgrave,  Lord,  203,  204,  280 

Municipal  Corporations  Bill :  de- 
bate in  Lords,  303 

Munster,  Lord,  377 

Murray,  Mrs.,  75 

Murray,  late  John,  37,  40,  56,  57, 
59,  60,  61,  62,  63,  64,  66,  67,  69, 
70,  71,  72,  73,  74,  75,  76,  117, 
127,  190,  194,  205,  206;  letters 
to,  63,  64,  65,  66,  127,  205,  206, 
209;  letters  to  Lockhart,  67, 
72 

Murray,  Scott,  221 

Namur,  47 

Nash,  214 

Navarino,  164 

Newman,    Cardinal,    297;     Apologia 

quoted,  297 
New  Monthly,  223 
Newton,  Stuart,  37 
New  York  Mirror,  249 
Nile,  173,  174 
Nonnanby,  Lady,  154 
Norton,    Mrs.,    203,    231,    232,    246, 

254,  279,  303 
Norton,  Hon.  G.,  232 
Nugent,  Lord,  216 

O'Connell,  D.,  211,  212,  247,  253, 
262,  278,  286,  308,  320,  327,  389; 
dispute  with  concerning  refer- 
ences in  speech  at  Taunton,  287- 
295 ;  references  in  Aylesbury 
speech,  335;  Sir  F.  Burdett  on, 
370 

O'Connell,  Morgan  —  letter  to,  289, 
292 

Ossulston,  Lord,  231,  250,  251,  252, 

255,  256,  356 
Ostend,  42 
Ouseley,  Sir  Gore,  381 

Falmerston,     Lord,    206,    276,    280, 

321,  322,  336,  382 
Paris,  95 


Parliament:  candidature  for  High 
Wy  combe,  211-220;  candida- 
ture for  Buckinghamshire,  220 ; 
candidature  withdrawn,  221 ; 
candidature  for  Marylebone,  224, 
225 ;  third  candidature  for  High 
Wycombe,  269-275 ;  candida- 
ture for  Taunton,  281-284; 
letters  to  electors  of  Taunton, 
293,  294,  295;  candidature  for 
Maidstone,  372-382 ;  elected, 
375 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  130,  202,  205,  260, 

261,  263,  264,  275,  276,  278,  279, 
280,  295,  298,  299,  300,  301,  302, 
317,  320,  322,  328,  329,  336,  378, 
381,   382,   388,   389;    letter  from, 
317 

Pelham,  H.,  3,  4 

Pen    and    Ink     Sketches    of    Poets, 

Preachers,  and  Politicians   quoted, 

282 

Pery :  see  Limerick,  Lord 
Phipps,  Gen.,  236 
Picciotto's  Sketches  of  Anglo-Jewish 

History,  quoted,  7 
Pignatelli,  Prince,  154 
Piraeus,  165 
Pitt,  276,  322 
Pollock,  Sir  J.  F.,  265 
Poniatowski,    Prince    and    Princess, 

377 

Ponsonby,  Sir  F.  C.,  155,  157 
Poor  Law,  373,  374 
Popanitta,    The    Voyage   of  Captain, 

41 ;  published,  117-120 
Pope,  15 

Potticany,  Rev.  John,  19,  25 
Powles,    Mr.    John    Diston,    56,    62, 

65,  73 

Praed,  Mackworth,  277,  332 
Present  State  of  Mexico,  59 
Psychological    Romance :      see     Con- 

tarini  Fleming 
Pyne,     William,     350;      letters     to, 

351,  352,  353,  358,  359,  365,  374 

Quarterly  Review,  61,  68,  231,  239 

Raikes,  H.  C.,  390 

Ramie,  171 

Reform  Act,  211,  215,  297,  315,  316 

Reform    Bills,    202,    209,    211,    212, 

262,  389 

Reid's  Life  of  Durham  quoted,  267, 
274 


400 


INDEX 


Representative,  The,  61-78,  84,  87,  88 
Revolutionary      Epick,       The,       194; 

published,  237-247 
Rhine,  47,  49,  52 
Rise  of  Iskander,  The,  199 
Robarts,  374,  375 
Roden,  Lord,  318 
Roebuck,  J.  A.,  305 
Rogers,  S.,  14,  256 
Rokeby,  Lord,  380 
Ronayne,  294 
Roper,  Miss,  19 
Rose,  Sir  Philip,  179,  333,  384 
Rosetta,  173 
Rosslyn,  Lord,  318 
Rowton,  Lord,  8,  24,  25,   102,   128, 

254 
Runnymede:    letters  to    The   Times, 

319-324,  332 
Russell,  George,  119 
Russell,   Lord   John,   204,   279,   320, 

321,  323,  327,  356,  389 

St.  Albans,  Duchess  of,  250 

St.    Bernard  —  visit    to    hospice    at, 

102 

St.  Maur,  Lady,  231,  254 
St.  Maur,  Lord,  233,  279,  280 
Salisbury,     Lady,     248,     252,     256; 

death,  332 
Saunders,  108 
Scarlett :  see  Abinger,  Lord 
Scott,  Anne,  77 
Scott,    Sir   Walter,    14,    62,    63,    65, 

66,  68,   70,  71,   77,  82;    Familiar 

Letters,    61,    68,    69,    70,    71,   72; 

Journal,  71 
Seville,  144,  145 
Seymour :  see  St.  Maur 
Shaftesbury,  Lord,  377 
Shee,  Sir  M.,  256,  277 
Sheil,  R.  L.,  223 
Shelley,  244,  361,  362,  363,  383 
Sherburne,  John  Henry,  60,  61 
Sheridan,  Charles,  231 
Sheridan,  Mrs.,  231,  233 
Sheridan,  R.  Brinsley,  233 
Sindbad  the  Sailor,   A   New   Voyage 

of,  333 

Slade,  Sir  A.,  199 
Smiles :      Life    of    Murray    quoted, 

40,   60,   61,   62,    63,    73,    76,    128, 

190,  206,  210 
Smith,  James,  236,  332 
Smith,  Hon.  Robert,  211,  212,  220, 

274 


Smyrna,  170 

Somerset,  Lady  Fitzroy,  303 

Somerset,  Granville,  280 

Southey,  14,  120,  233 

Spa,  47,  48,  49 

Spain,  King  of,  239 

Spectator:    on  speech  at  Aylesbury, 

334 ;    on   election   for   Maidstone, 

377 

Spencer,  Lord,  236 ;  death,  263 
Spring  Rice,  T.,  321 
Standish,     Frank     Hall,     142,     144, 

145 

Stanley,  Massey,  250,  255,  303 
Stanley,    Lord,    242,    255,   260,    261, 

265,  278,  323 
Stephen,    Sir    Leslie:     Hours    in    a 

Library  quoted,  193,  345 
Star  Chamber,  84,  91,  332 
Sterling,  332 
Strangford,     Lord,     203,    205,     329, 

335,  377 

Stuart,  Lady  Dudley,  248,  256 
Sugden,  Sir  E.,  265,  318 
Summary    of   Events  —  mainly   Lord 

Lyndhurst's     Career    from       1826 

to  1836,  301,  328,  386-389 
Survilliers,  Count  of,  256 
Sutton,    Henry    Manners,    246,  279, 

388,  389 

Sutton,  Lady  Manners,  246,  256 
Swain,     Stevens,      Maples,     Pearse, 

and  Hunt,  Messrs.,  32,  56 
Sybil,  371 
Sykes,  Lady,  250,  251,  303,  305 

Talbot,  247,  255,  303 

Tancred  quoted,  349 

Tankerville,  Lady,  252,  256 

Taunton :  Parliamentary  candida- 
ture :  see  under  Parliament 

Tavistock,  Lady,  252 

Tennyson :  on  Henrietta  Temple, 
345 ;  letter  from,  345 

Thebes,  173,  174 

Theocritus:   Adonisian  Eclogue,  25 

Thesiger,  F.,  302 

Thompson,  Col.  Perronet,  375 

Times,  The,  61,  209,  301,  334,  373; 
letters  to,  215,  318;  Letters  of 
Runnymede,  319-324,  332;  re- 
port of  speech  at  Lewes,  326 ; 
contributes  articles  to,  332,  333 

Tita:  see  Falcieri,  Giovanni 
Battista 

Todosto,  Rachel,  7 


INDEX 


401 


Torrens's  Life  of  Melbourne  quoted, 

255 

Trelawny,  E.  J.t  331,  332,  362 
Turner,  Dawson :  letter  to,  295 
Turner,    Sharon,    23,    37,    75,    116; 

letter  to,  116 
Tyrrell,  Sir  J.,  367 

Venetia,  or  the  Poet's  Daughter, 
337,  356,  358,  359,  360-366 

Venice,  104,  105,  106 

Verona,  103 

Vicenza,  104 

Victoria,  Queen,  222,  371,  377,  382, 
384 

Villa  Reals,  3,  7 

Villiers,  Charles,  124,  125,  203 

Vindication  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution in  a  Letter  to  a  Noble  and 
Learned  Lord,  177,  306 

Vivian  Grey,  20,  26,  34,  35,  36,  38, 
39,  53,  54,  74,  75,  76,  102,  107, 
176,  181,  182,  184,  185,  187,  192, 
236,  386;  published,  79-93; 
sequel  published,  112-115 

Wall,  Baring,  331,  332 

Walpole's  History  quoted,  300 

Walpole,  Lord,  367 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  255 

Walter,  John,  319,  373,  374 

Ward,  Robert  (Plumer),  80,  81,  82, 

84,  119;    Tremaine,  79;   De  Vere, 

81 

Warren,  Samuel,  240 
Waterloo,   battle  of:    visits  site  of, 

46,47 

Webb,  Philip  Carteret,  32 
Webster,  Col.,  204,  205 
Wellesley,  Lord,  202 
Wellington,   Duke  of,  91,   130,  246, 


247,  252,  256,  260,  263,  264,  268, 
275,  303,  304,  328,  329,  335,  381, 
386,  388 ;  refuses  formal  permis- 
sion to  dedication  of  The  Revolu- 
tionary Epick,  246,  247;  letter 
to,  275;  letters  from,  247, 
275 

Westminster  Club :  membership  of, 
282 

Westminster  Review:  on  The  Young 
Duke,  134 

Westmorland,  Lady,  233 

Wharncliffe,  Lord,  302 

What  is  He?  225,  226,  227 

Wheeler,  Mrs.,  223 

Whiggism,  The  Spirit  of:  pub- 
lished, 324-326 

Wicklow,  Lord,  304 

Wieland's  Agathon,  257,  258 

Wilkinson,  Sir  Gardiner,  174 

William  IV.,  King,  260,  264,  278, 
301,  329,  368,  371 

Williams,  145 

Willis,  N.  P.,   249 

Wilton,  Lady,  344 

Wilton,  Lord,  247,  256,  303 

Wolff,  Lucien,  6,  87 

Woolbeding,  379 

Worcester,  Marquis  of,  255 

Wright,  63,  65,  66 

Wycombe  Sentinel,  220 

Wyndham,  Sir  William,  218,  219, 
221 

Yanina,  158,  161 
York,  63 

Young,  Tom,  368 

Young  Duke,  The,  176:  published, 
123-135 

Zante,  164 


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The  Life  of  William  Ewart  Gladstone 
BY  JOHN  MORLEY 

In  three  volumes     Illustrated     8w     $10.50 

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ful history  of  political,  social,  economic,  literary,  and  religious  development 
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necessarily  a  history  of  England  and  of  English  politics  during  the  greater 
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"It  is  Gladstone's  personality  that  Mr.  John  Morley  has  managed  to 
preserve  in  the  three  big  volumes  of  the  'Life.'  The  impression  that  the 
record  makes  on  you  is  that  the  man  was  greater  even  than  the  statesman." 

—  New  York  Sun. 

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Modern  Egypt 

BY  THE  EARL  OF   CROMER 
In  two  volumes     With  portraits  and  map     $6.00 

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its  tremendous  contrast  between  the  cruelty  and  corruption  of  oriental  rule, 
depicted  in  the  chapters  on  Ismail  Pasha,  and  the  just  and  beneficent  order  of 
things  described  in  the  closing  pages.  British  idealism  and  love  of  justice 
can  show  no  nobler  monument  than  Lord  Cromer's  Egypt.  .  .  . 

"Lord  Cromer's  book  is  a  worthy,  modest,  clear-eyed  account  of  a  great 
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'No  representative  of  the  British  government  abroad  has,  in  recent  years, 
had  a  story  to  tell  quite  comparable  to  that  which  Lord  Cromer  unfolds  in 
these  volumes.  Fate  gave  him  a  remarkable  opportunity  and,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  he  rose  to  it  in  remarkable  fashion.  .  .  . 

"  His  book  is  the  book  of  a  skilful,  intellectual,  and  high-minded  diplomat 
who  has  labored  always  with  unselfish  zeal,  and,  in  recording  the  events  in 
which  he  has  shared,  is  anxious  to  sink  all  personal  considerations  before  the 
conviction  that  the  truth  should  prevail."  —  New  York  Tribune. 


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Memoirs  of  Prince  Chlodwig  of   Hohenlohe- 
Schillingsfuerst 

AUTHORIZED  BY  PRINCE  ALEXANDER  HOHENLOHE  AND 
EDITED  BY  FREDERICK  CURTIUS 

In  two  volumes     English  edition  supervised  by  George  W.  Chrystal 

$6.00 

"Hohenlohe's  Journals  constitute  the  unedited  and  unvarnished  memo- 
randa of  a  wonderfully  impartial  observer,  jotted  down  from  time  to  time  in 
diaries,  during  the  period  extending  from  1866  until  his  death,  about  five  years 
ago.  His  .ntention  was  that  they  should  serve  for  material  for  a  memoir  which 
he  intended  to  write,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  ever  contemplated  their 
appearance  in  their  present  form. 

"  It  is  this,  perhaps,  that  renders  them  of  such  absorbing  interest.  They 
are  so  intensely  human.  They  give  evidence  of  the  gift  of  humor,  with  which 
but  few  people  credited  the  prince  when  he  was  alive,  and  they  show  him  to 
have  been  a  man  of  rare  breadth  of  mind  and  of  freedom  from  prejudice. 
Perhaps  this  was  due  in  a  measure  to  the  exalted  character  of  his  birth.  For, 
whereas  Bismarck  belonged  to  the  petty  Prussian  nobility,  Prince  Clovis  Ho- 
henlohe  was  a  scion  of  one  of  the  former  sovereign  houses  of  Europe,  and  re- 
lated as  such  to  most  of  the  reigning  dynasties  of  the  Old  World."  —  New 
York  Tribune. 

"  It  presents  a  capital  portrait  of  the  early  development  of  a  true  patriot 
and  able  statesman,  whose  clear  insight  and  firmness  of  purpose  are  percepti- 
ble even  in  the  earliest  years  of  his  career,  a  picture  of  a  man  who  began  to 
dream  in  youth  the  dream  of  German  unity,  and  who  remained  faithful  to  bis 
ideal,  and  served  it  steadfastly  till  its  realization.  .  .  . 

"  Bismarck  looms  large  in  the  second  volume,  as  he  is  destined  to  loom  in 
all  the  memoirs  of  biographies  still  to  come  of  the  Germany  of  the  second  half 
of  the  last  century,  and,  unfortunately,  the  impression  one  receives  of  the  per- 
sonality and  character  of  this  man  of  genius  grows  more  unfavorable  with  each 
new  revelation.  Hohenlohe's.  report  of  the  Emperor's  account  of  his  final  rup- 
ture with  his  grandfather's  chancellor  is  still  too  fresh  in  the  mind  of  every 
American  newspaper  reader  to  need  repetition  here,  but  throughout  this  sec- 
ond volume  there  are  glimpses  of  a  man  of  imperious  intolerance  of  all  pow- 
ers besides  his  own,  capable  of  descending  to  the  pettiest  meannesses,  swayed 
by  the  smallest  jealousies.  Prince  Hohenlohe,  whose  revelation  of  himself  in 
these  memoirs  shows  him  to  have  combined  a  strong  pride  of  birth  with  a 
sane  liberalism  of  statesmanship,  asserts  that  the  dream  of  a  'Bismarck  dy- 
nasty '  was  very  real."  —  Independent. 

"The  unexpectedness  of  the  Hohenlohe  Memoirs  is  almost  as  refreshing 
in  France  as  in  Germany.  They  are  not  ordinary  memoirs,  but  rather  tell- 
tale impressions  of  persons  and  things  in  the  Third  French  Republic  as  they 
were  felt  by  a  keenly  sensitive,  highly  trained,  and  experienced  observer.  No 
one  ever  dreamed  that  the  spare-framed,  brick-complexioned  German  ambas- 
sador, disinterested  rather  than  distinguished,  sitting  silent  for  the  most  part, 
with  lack-lustre  eyes  and  head  leaning  boredly  over  the  right  shoulder,  was 
taking  interior  notes  of  the  passing  show,  to  be  transcribed  by  night  with  dis- 
concerting frankness  and  left  to  be  printed."  —  New  York  Evening  Post. 


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Rambling  Recollections 

BY  THE  RT.  HON.  SIR  HENRY  DRUMMOND  WOLFF, 
G.C.B.,  G.CM.G. 

Two  volumes     Cloth     8vo     $7.50 

"The  most  valuable  parts  of  the  book  are  those  chapters  devoted  to  the 
British  administration  of  the  Ionian  islands;  the  account  of  WolfPs  interviews 
with  a  number  of  the  prominent  European  statesmen  just  prior  to  the  Con- 
gress of  Berlin  of  1878;  the  description  of  the  organization  of  East  Rumelia, 
pursuant  to  the  treaty  formulated  by  that  Congress,  and  the  story  of  the  insti- 
gation of  the  treaty  with  Turkey,  upon  which  is  based  the  legality  of  Eng- 
land's present  anomalous  position  in  Egypt.  Of  great  interest  also  are  the 
personal  impressions  of  the  Franco- Prussian  War,  and  the  detailed  account  of 
Lytton's  strange  interest  in  occult  phenomena,  to  which  he  gave  expression 
in  'Zanoni,'  and  in  some  of  his  other  novels."  —  New  York  Times. 

"  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff's  volume  is  interesting  in  another  way.  It 
is  crammed  full  of  anecdotes  of  all  kinds  of  people  in  all  kinds  of  circles  — 
religious,  diplomatic,  parliamentary,  social,  literary.  The  work  corroborates 
the  statements  often  made  that  Sir  Henry  is  a  raconteur  par  excellence,  while 
it  also  proves  him  to  be  a  first-class  diplomatist,  with  a  fine  memory  and  a 
keen  eye  and  ear.  He  has  many  stories  of  his  work  and  experiences  in  Mad- 
rid, Roumania,  Egypt,  France,  and  America,  as  well  as  of  his  House  of  Com- 
mons period.  Here  is  a  tale  about  the  future  Lord  Beaconsfield:  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli used  generally  to  walk  home  from  the  House  of  Commons,  usually  in  the 
society  of  Lord  Henry  Lennox.  One  night,  rather  late,  I  was  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Whitehall  as  the  house  was  breaking  up,  and  I  met  Mr.  Disraeli 
alone.  He  asked  me  to  accompany  him,  and  we  canvassed  the  prospects  of 
the  government.  I  said  to  him,  as  there  was  some  talk  of  the  government 
resigning,  '  I  suppose  you  will  be  prime  minister.'  He  answered,  '  In  the  ex- 
traordinary course  of  things.'  "  —  Chicago  Record-Herald. 

Life  of  Lord  Randolph  Churchill 

Two  volumes     Cloth     izmo     Illustrated     $g.oo 

"These  two  volumes  form  the  stormy  record  of  a  stormy  life.  That  they 
should  be  more  or  less  partisan  was  to  be  expected,  that  they  should  be  more 
or  less  colored  by  personal  prejudice  was  also  certain,  yet  they  are  on  the 
whole  a  fairer  and  more  comprehensive  consideration  of  the  man  and  his 
work  than  could  have  been  written  by  any  one  else.  They  form  a  permanent 
addition  to  political  history,  and  they  prove  that  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  is  a 
worthy  member  of  his  distinguished  family."  —  Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"  Disraeli  had  great  faith  in  the  possibilities  of  Lord  Randolph  as  a  young 
man.  He  gave  the  Fourth  Party  movement  his  approval  at  the  outset.  Per- 
haps he  sympathized  with  any  other  man  who  undertook  again  what  he  had 
so  triumphantly  accomplished,  the  remaking  of  the  Tory  party  by  bringing  it 
in  touch  with  democracy.  .  .  .  His  weakness  as  a  statesman  was  an  in- 
ability to  act  along  with  others.  He  offended  Queen  Victoria,  he  alienated 
Lord  Salisbury,  and  he  quarreled  with  his  intimate  political  associates.  But 
he  saw  clearly,  and  he  predicted  the  fast-approaching  time  when  labor  laws  will 
be  made  by  labor  interest  for  the  advantage  of  labor.  These  volumes  are  the 
record  of  the  most  splendid  failure  in  the  political  history  of  England."  — 
Philadelphia  Press.  

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